Invasion of the spanish moss!

[sassybutterfly1]

Hi! Any tips or tricks for getting rid of the beautiful but invasive Spanish moss? It's on 85% of my trees at least, including my mulberrry... I had called a tree company, but it was pricey! I have oak, mulberry, crape (spelling?) Myrtle, mimosa etc.. thanks so much!

 

[Chuck]

Spanish moss and Ball moss are not harmful to a tree as they are epiphytes and do not uptake any water or nutrients from the tree. It is not a parasite. You can see it growing on power lines and fences. The only harmfull thing about the moss is that if it gets to be super thick it can block sunlight and become heavy. A spray of 1/4 cup of baking soda per gallon of water will kill it but when it is dead it will not fall out of the tree until the tree grows enough to shed it or a heavy wind blows it off.

 

[roadrunner]

I have no Spanish moss in my neighborhood, but only a mile down the road the neighborhoods are covered in the stuff. And that's because Spanish moss requires near constant high humidity and those neighborhoods have tons of trees that create a sort of microclimate that traps the humidity -- you probably have a lot of trees around.

What's funny is that I mostly only see the Spanish moss growing on Live oaks and they stay away from most other trees, so I don't know why you have it growing on mulberries and other trees in such heavy quantities.

I would just rip it down and use it as mulch/compost. BTW, it's not actually a moss, it's actually classified as an Air plant, because it has no roots and it gets its nutrients/water from the air.

 

[Esther Knapicius]

Wow. Why? at my Airbnb in NC we love it.