1857-05-10 The Cottage Gardener - Moss in Lawns

THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION, 

MAY 10, 1857

MOSS AND PLANTAINS IN A LAWN.

"Will you inform me if there is any way of getting moss and Plantain out of lawns? I have had the Plantain cut out several times, and sown white Clover, &c., in its place, but find it soon comes up again, much to my annoyance."- A NEW SUBSCRIBER.

[You are not aware, then, that the lady's friend, THE COTTAGE GARDENER, will not hear of a lawn without moss? Short grass without a bottom of moss is only fit to walk on for about five or six weeks in the height of summer in this climate. When the Horticultural Society was in feather, some fifteen years since, they, or their representatives, opened a regular siege against mossy lawns, and they advised all sorts of nasty, dirty, stinking things to be thrown on the face of our carpet lawns to get rid of moss! No wonder, therefore, that people so devoid of judgment came to the dogs. The want of a little moss has ruined thousands and tens of thousands of the best lawns that ever came from seeds, for this reason-gardeners will have closely-shaven lawns by the end of May, and every hot summer the grass "burns" more or less in June; thus in time all the finer grasses perish outright, and the worms take the lead; then scraping, scratching, and sweeping, will soon make a patchy lawn of it, and a welcome bed for the seeds of all kinds of weeds, from all of which, and more besides, a thin coat of moss would preserve us. But, like upstarts and gunpowder, moss makes a bad master; it must be kept under foot, and the winter, being its natural time for growing, is the time to look to it. A close mowing in November, in February, and in March, will make it exquisitely comfortable to walk on, and preserve the finer grasses. No weed is easier to get rid of than the Plantain, for it never comes a second time if the carroty root-stock is got out; but to cut the root-stock half way down increases it fourfold. We wish that Daisies could be kept off so easily.]