Moss and thatch are symptoms, and killing them on their own buys a season
Through the growing season, which is long here
BC Landscape and Nursery Association standards
Haney, Albion, Silver Valley and Whonnock
Of the places we work, Maple Ridge takes the most rain. It sits inland and higher than the flat delta ground to the southwest, and lawns here behave accordingly.
Roughly 100 mm more precipitation arrives for every 100 m of elevation. A lawn in Silver Valley or Thornhill is not on the same rainfall as one down by the river in Hammond.
Aeration and overseeding need ground that will take a machine without smearing. Here that window is shorter, so the timing matters more than the product does.
Constant moisture suits moss and suits thatch. Both of them are winning against the grass rather than arriving out of nowhere.
| Part of Maple Ridge | What we usually find | How we approach it |
|---|---|---|
| Haney, Port Haney and Hammond | The older town lots down near the river, flatter and often shaded by mature street trees | Shade tolerant seed and a higher cut, and moss treated at the cause rather than annually |
| Albion and Cottonwood | Newer subdivisions, smaller lawns and soil that was compacted while the houses went up | Aeration first. Seed on top of a compacted lot is money spent twice |
| Silver Valley and Thornhill | Up the hill, so more rain again, and more of the year when the ground is saturated | The working window is shorter here, so aeration and seeding get booked to the weather |
| Whonnock, Ruskin and Websters Corners | Larger rural lots out east, with lawn running into rough grass at the edges | We agree where the mown lawn stops, so the price is not open ended |
| Yennadon and the north side | Established gardens with real tree cover and correspondingly heavy moss pressure | Honest advice about which parts will hold grass and which will not |
Because the conditions suit it and something has already weakened the grass. Maple Ridge takes more rain than anywhere else we work, and constant moisture plus shade plus compacted ground is exactly what moss wants. It is filling a gap rather than creating one.
We can treat it, and on its own that lasts about a season. You end up with a black mat to rake out and bare soil underneath, in the same conditions that produced the moss in the first place. Treating it is worth doing as part of fixing the cause, not instead of it.
It is the layer of dead stems and roots between the green and the soil. Push your fingers down through the grass; if there is a spongy brown layer more than a finger’s width before you reach soil, that is thatch. Cool wet ground slows the decomposition that would otherwise keep it in check.
Almost certainly. Maple Ridge is the wet end of this valley, and it gets wetter with elevation, roughly 100 mm more precipitation for every 100 m you climb. A lawn in Silver Valley is on a different rainfall from one in Hammond, let alone one in Ladner.
When the ground will take a machine without smearing, which here is a narrower window than it is south of the river. We would rather move a booking by a fortnight than aerate saturated soil and do more harm than good.
Not on that account. Clippings break down quickly and they are not what makes thatch; stems and roots are. We deal with them either way depending on the cut and the weather, but removing them will not prevent a thatch layer.
Usually deep shade, and usually the honest answer is that it will not hold grass whatever you spend. A planted bed or mulch under a mature tree looks better in every month of the year than a lawn that gets reseeded each spring and thins out by July.
It depends on the area, the access and how much recovery work the lawn needs before a schedule makes sense. A tidy Albion lawn on a fortnightly cut and a mossed over half acre in Whonnock are not the same job. We look at it and quote in writing.
