Bag the Ball Moss

My trees have ball moss, how can I get rid of it?

There are 4 meth­ods for treat­ment and/​or removal of ball moss.

1. Phys­i­cal removal by hand.

In minor infes­ta­tions, hand removal (a.k.a. mechan­i­cal removal) is best. A focused stream spray, from a stan­dard gar­den hose, may also assist with this. (Cau­tion: The use of a pres­sure wash­er will dam­age the bark and cause sig­nif­i­cant injury if used incorrectly).

There are two cru­cial things to remem­ber in the case of attempt­ing hand removal.

One: SAFE­TY FIRST. Using lad­ders near trees is VERY DAN­GER­OUS. We rec­om­mend using a tree ser­vice pro, rather than attempt­ing this. But if you must, have a part­ner with you. Do not climb a lad­der with­out a part­ner near­by to assist.

Two: BAG THE BALL MOSS before dis­card­ing it. Because it is spread through the air, remov­ing it with­out bag­ging it and tying up the bag care­ful­ly can lead to fur­ther spread­ing, either from your prop­er­ty on en route to trash facilities.

Removal of dead tree limbs after the ball moss has been dis­card­ed is also recommended.

2. Bak­ing Soda Solu­tion treatment.

A solu­tion of bak­ing soda and water can be applied that can des­ic­cate the ball moss and ulti­mate­ly kill it.

A home­own­er can make their own bak­ing soda solu­tion in a small­er spray bot­tle, but the tank must be con­stant­ly shak­en to main­tain the solu­tion. Also keep in mind that the bak­ing soda solu­tion when sprayed can leave behind a white residue on cars and near­by surfaces.

The sug­gest­ed mix­ture for the solu­tion is one half pound of bak­ing soda per one gal­lon of water, or for larg­er treat­ments, five pounds of bak­ing soda to 10 gal­lons of water. The best time to treat ball moss with bak­ing soda is late win­ter to ear­ly spring (before spring rains start), when the trees are most­ly bare.

When treat­ing more than one or two small trees, the dif­fi­cul­ty with this method is the vol­ume of solu­tion need­ed, and that the liq­uid requires a mechan­i­cal agi­ta­tor to keep the bak­ing soda dis­solved into the water solu­tion. This can­not be done by a typ­i­cal spray rig or pes­ti­cide appli­ca­tor and can cause dam­aged equip­ment when the bak­ing soda set­tles and clogs or dam­ages sprayers. We rec­om­mend call­ing a pro­fes­sion­al, licensed and cer­ti­fied arborist if you would like to treat several/​large trees.

It can take some time for weath­er and wind to knock dead epi­phytes off the tree. Home­own­ers may help this process along by spray­ing off the dead rem­nants with a gar­den hose spray nozzle.

The bak­ing soda is non-tox­ic and typ­i­cal­ly not harm­ful to plants, ani­mals or the envi­ron­ment. Spray­ing this solu­tion can also be used in con­junc­tion with man­u­al removal.

3. Cop­per Fungi­cide applied by a licensed, cer­ti­fied and insured arborist or pro­fes­sion­al chem­i­cal applicator.

Baton Rouge Green is not famil­iar with this prac­tice and prod­uct, and can­not speak to its effec­tive­ness or safe­ty. How­ev­er, we do know that exces­sive use of a cop­per-con­tain­ing prod­uct can dam­age the host plant (tree). Con­sult your arborist.

4. Tree removal by a licensed, cer­ti­fied and insured arborist (see below to search for arborists).

In some extreme cas­es, an arborist may rec­om­mend removal of a very infest­ed tree. This is a worst-case sce­nario for very sick­ly, declin­ing trees. Replace­ment with a healthy, native species tree is encouraged!