<p>Just spent most of my afternoon out on our backyard patio, removing moss from between the bricks. I’ll bet you never knew that fondue forks can be used as a gardening tool!</p>
<p>Anyway, we’ve never had moss like this before, and I’m assuming it’s due to the incredible amount of snow we had this year (twice as much as usual) that kept the patio damp for much longer than usual. Does anyone know of something we can now spray on the patio to minimize the moss from growing back? My H was told a solution of bleach and water is what is used on roofs, but we’re afraid of bleach staining or discoloring the bricks. The articles he found suggested 10-15% bleach to the water. </p>
<p>Since moss isn’t really a weed, we assume something like Round-Up wouldn’t work, but maybe others here know otherwise. The patio is east facing so it does get full sun (our bigger trees are further back in the backyard). Any ideas?</p>
<p>Iron kills moss – it’s what’s in the commercial moss killers you can get for your lawn. The problem is that it can stain concrete.</p>
<p>I pour undiluted laundry beach on the moss that grows on – well – practically everything around here. It kills it fast and the dead moss plants quietly erode away. I have not noticed that it changes the color of the underlying concrete. You might try testing a small area of paver in an inconspicuous spot to see if the bleach changes the colors. </p>
<p>Bleach won’t stop it from growing back, by the way, it will just kill it dead. I used laundry bleach in my anger and frustration. I’ve tried everything to get rid of the moss in my exposed-aggregate front walk, so I used undiluted bleach because I didn’t know what to use, and I figured it would work. It does, but a diluted form probably would, too.</p>
<p>teri - won’t Roundup kill anything and everything? We had an issue last year with nutgrass-infested Asian jasmine in the neighborhood’s common area beds. Had to ‘paint’ the Roundup on the nutgrass blades with a tiny sponge to avoid killing the jasmine. (Such a good time btw… )</p>
<p>Also, I have to say…if we are talking soft green fuzzy stuff, I’m actually jealous of those of you with moss! Not something we get a lot of here in Texas.</p>
<p>lol WashDad…I’ll take it. But it will probably last about 10 minutes in our hideous climate. Hey…I have an idea, apply the equivalent of Texas summer day on your moss…hit it with a hair dryer.</p>
<p>or you learn to love the look of moss… Costco sells a deck cleaner that does OK on moss. The name escapes me. a pressure washer is sort of a must for decks and patios up here in the nw</p>
<p>I second the power washer suggestion. I did my brick patio last year for the first time in 15 years and the results were spectacular. The bricks look as good as new. Be advised however, the water action will not only get rid of the moss but the soil that it grows in as well. You’ll need a few bags of sand to broom in afterwards to fill those gaps that years of freezing action has opened.</p>
<p>drb - if you ever need a recommendation for Mensa, let me know. You are my new hero today.</p>
<p>I was sitting here on the couch reading the news on line, and fell asleep with my laptop on my lap. As I woke up, I didn’t really need to move to check on any follow ups to my question. I clicked a couple of times, read your response, and said to my H, “Vinegar.” He said, “What?” I said, “Vinegar, for the patio.” He said, “What, did you dream it?” </p>
<p>Then he said, yea, it’s a weak acid; and I said, yea, acetic acid. And he said, what’s the ph? I told him I didn’t care if it worked on the patio. For those who don’t know, H’s a chemist.</p>
<p>As for the power washer. Well, my post was eight hours too late. We actually have one - got it last year to clean the deck. But I never even thought of trying that. </p>
<p>So, I’ve actually removed most of the moss manually; however, there are small, almost invisible spots here and there. So I will treat what’s left with vinegar, let the remainder die, use the power washer, then replace the sand. I got a plan. Thanks CC!</p>
<p>We, PNW dwellers, do know moss! Iron-based moss killers do stain patios and driveways, so never use any moss killer with iron(II) sulfate on those. Zinc-based moss control powders do not cause staining, and can be sprinkled on wet surfaces to kill moss. After the initial treatment, enough zinc salts get retained for a while to prevent new moss growth, but a prophylactic treatment once in a while is needed. Yeah, manual removal of the dead moss is a pain, and I have not found a good way around it other than pressure washing or scrubbing it out.</p>
<p>I was told to try Ultra Concentrated Dawn Dish Detergent – one cup to one gallon of water. My problem is in a garden and it is somewhat easy to use a grout knife for a scraper to get the moss up and then spray the ground to kill the roots. The plus is that it will not harm my blue berries and other plants. I usually use vinegar (white) but that is not good in the garden. I have to try this Dawn approach but it was recommended on several sites. For bricks which I have on my walk, I will use the scraper, power wash with my regular hose and then let it dry. That way I will not dilute the Dawn concentrate. Then I will use the sprayer approach and see if that works. I also have a patio with weeds and I installed with a plastic barrier. I also used sand and peebles and I am going to use regular table salt in the cracks where the weeds have come up. I have not tried this but supposedly it works very well. I do not use poisons in my garden after not seeing bees for about three years. This spring was wet, hundreds of weeds and flowers and now I have Monarchs, hornets, bees, wasps – So glad they are back!</p>
<p>I like moss. I just spent yesterday planting some in between the stepping stones on the path to the driveway!
But otherwise a power washer works.</p>
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