Help My Blue Rug Junipers

[Bill]

I have 344 Blue Rug Junipers planted on the hillside in front of my house. They were planted 13 years ago. They are quite large and healthy. The drainage is good and they get enough sun. The problem is that moss is growing on the lower branches and killing them. This season, for the first time, some moss is also growing on the exposed upper branches. I do not know how to attack the moss which is hidden underneath the branches. Is their a spray which would penetrate the juniper branches without hurting them and also kill the moss?

I would really appreciate any help that I can get.

[Bill who putters]

Moss likes acid and moisture. Perhaps some lime. Go light and do a small section first case I am wrong.

Soil test are you below 4.5 ?

Bill

[brooklyn1]

I have blue rug junipers in my shrubery beds in front of my house. When I first planted them they looked very puny, they were in 6" pots. I planted six on each side. After four years they completly covered the ground so that no weeds grow through. They began to get lichens growing on the branches so I pruned away those parts. The Junipers grew back so that it's time to prune again before the lichens return. That's a lot of plants you have, must be a big hillside. How far apart are they planted? Sounds like they're over grown, not allowing the sun to penetrate and dry the ground and the plants. After 13 years they're probably growing one over another, they likely need a good pruning. I would cut away like half of each plant. I assume you have no deer or they would prune them for you, right down to nubs... that's what happened to mine the first winter so I put up a fence. If they're healthy plants they will grow back, and fast.

[Phisherman]

I have blue rug juniper on a sunny hillside and there is moss, lichens, and algae growing. It doesn't seem to have an impact at all. The moss suggests acidic soil, not bad for junipers. I suggest leaving the moss alone.

[David Hare-Scott]

Why is lichen bad? I don't know anything about these prostrate junipers but in these parts nobody worries about lichen on trees, it is taken as a sign the air is not polluted and generally left alone. I haven't seen any indication that it harms trees.

David

[brooklyn1]

I don't really know if it's "bad". On my blue rug juniper it was a question of aesthetics, I didn't like the look of it. I knew severe pruning wouldn't hurt because the deer chewed them down to nubs and they grew back, in fact during winter the deer eat whatever parts grow through the fence and during summer it all grows back and more. But I would assume that lichens, moss, and fungi growing on live plants makes them parasitic, they must be taking something from the plant and I assume they give nothing back so it's not symbiotic. There are lichens covering the trunks of both my sapling gingko trees, I'd like to get rid of the ugly things but obviously I can't prune away the trunks without killing the trees... and I'm not willing to risk applying even mild household products like vinegar. Meanwhile the trees are growing, albiet slowly, I just tell myself that gingkos grow very slowly.

[David Hare-Scott]

A lichen is a symbiosis between an alga and a fungus, AFAIK it only uses the tree for support (as it uses rocks) so that the alga can get up into the light and do photosynthesis.

Indeed they do. Mine has hardly chnaged in 5 years while other trees next to it bound ahead.

David