Mossy lawn

Recently moved to a home with a front yard, predominantly moss..heavy,heavy moss- nearly 90% of the lawn actually. Suggestions ? I live in RI.. Thanks, Mike

Can you learn to like the moss? Typically when the conditions are ideal for moss growth, they are not ideal for grass so I think you may have trouble getting a real lawn established (my guess is it used to be a lawn, but the conditions weren't right for the grass to do well so it gradually died off and the moss took over). If you hate the moss, I'd look for some shade-tolerant groundcovers, they won't take as much foot traffic as grass but will like your conditions better.

Ecrane is right, your lawn is either not getting enough sunlight, there is a problem with drainage under the soil, or maybe you never had a great lawn to start with. Over here in UK, I have a huge problem with one of my lawns and moss grows at a terrific speed, I end up raking out all the moss, or as much as I can, lay it aside and the birds love it for nesting material. or dump it, then look at the soil, is it totally compact, wet or really cold to touch when the sun hits it, if yes to all those questions, you either spend money on drainage underground, (land drains), or build up the top soil with lots of horticultural sand mixed into to soil to help with drainage, or look at the position of the lawn, is it getting enough light, like is the house causing shade, trees, etc are all bad for lawns where moss is growing happy, there are lawn weed and feed that you buy to kill off the moss and all other weeds (use in a calm day as you dont want this to blow onto other plants or they will die off too) but it dont kill off grass. if your conditions improve, once you get rid off all the moss, you then spread lawn sand and compost mixed over the lawn, you kind of lift a spade-full of this mix and strew it over the lawn rather than lay a thick layer, then with a witches broom or yard brush, you brush this mix evenly, then scatter new lawn seed to regrow the baldy patches of lawn, it is a good bit of work to carry out but well worth it, IF you know all the other conditions are right for lawn growing, as Ecrane said, maybe you dont have good conditions and no matter what you do, a new lawn could end up the same, My own mossy lawn is caused by too little day light in winter and constant wet rainy weather with insufficient winter drainage, but each your I do get it back into good condition again, just a lot of work, I can keep on top of it for several years by feeding and removing all the moss each spring, the moss actually prevents the grass from spreading out new growth, every 4/5 years I have to hire a professional electric / petrol moss raker to get back on top. hope all this helps you out as maybe before you moved, the lawn was just really neglected and you have the results to show for it. Good luck. WeeNel.