How To Top Dress a Lawn

Our tips for top dressing your lawn

If you’re looking at ways to keep your lawn happy and healthy, you may have stumbled across the idea of top dressing. Lawn top dressing is often done to help boost a lawn’s growth and health, and can be a relatively simple way to care for your grass.

In today’s article, we’ll be taking a look at the basics of top dressing a lawn, including why it’s important and how and when to do it.

What is top dressing?

Top dressing a lawn is essentially placing an application of sand, organic compost, or a similar material on top of a lawn to help improve the health and appearance of lawns. While there are many products you can use for lawn top dressing, sand and compost are common materials used.

Lawn top dressing products such as sand and compost form a protective layer over the grass, helping to keep the roots cool and shielding them from the sun. In addition, top dressing can improve drainage and increase the amount of nutrients a lawn can hold.

Why is top dressing important?

There are a few key reasons why you might want to top dress your lawn. The first is to improve drainage and soil health. Having a turf that drains well improves the overall health of the grass. This can be particularly helpful if you have a space that doesn’t drain well. If you have a poorly drained section of your yard, you may want to top dress the affected areas with sand or compost which can help break up thick layers of clay or dirt, increasing water drainage from those spots. Top dressing can also make your lawn greener and better at resisting disease.

When should I top dress my lawn?

Generally, the best time to top dress your lawn is at the start of spring. This is because the lawn should be coming out of a slower growing period and moving into a time of more growth. However, if you have a cool season grass such as Bluegrass or Fescues, you’ll likely want to complete your top dressing in the autumn. Top dressing doesn’t need to be a regular event. Instead, try to aim to top dress your lawn every couple of years.

How much do I need?

The amount of top dressing you’ll need will depend on a variety of factors such as the size and type of turf, as well as how often you’d like to apply top dressing. It can be difficult to predict exactly how much sand or compost you’ll need for your lawn the first time, but generally you should aim for enough to cover the lawn at a thickness of about 1cm. If you’d like a hand with your lawn top dressing, call in the lawn care professionals at Jim’s Mowing!

How to top dress your lawn

Top dressing a lawn is pretty simple. You can choose to do it all at once or break it into sections to make the process a little easier. You might like to start by top dressing small patches of your lawn that need a little extra attention, such as bare patches or those that have a particularly high amount of thatch.

Before you get started, you’ll need to source a few materials. This can include:

• Top dressing soil
• Wheelbarrow
• Gardening gloves
• Lawn leveller
• Rake
• Lawn aerator

Step 1: Decide on the material

First, you’ll need to decide on the type of material you’d like to use for your top dressing. This can include sand, compost, or a combination of the two. If you’re choosing to use compost, it’s important to make sure it’s well-aged and has been broken down into a fine consistency. Generally, sand can work well for clay soils, whereas compost can be beneficial for both clay and sandy soils.

Step 2: Dethatch your lawn

Once you’ve decided on the material you’ll be using, it’s time to start dethatching your lawn. While a little bit of thatch can be helpful for keeping your lawn healthy, too much can prevent water and air from getting into the soil. Lawn can be dethatched using a rake and your hands, or a lawn aerator. An aerator can generally be rented from your local nursery or hardware store.

Step 3: Mow your lawn

The next step in the top dressing process is to mow your lawn. Use a catcher to remove the cut grass from the surface of your turf as you mow. These clippings can be added to compost for future use around the garden. Be sure not to mow your lawn too short, as this can cause it harm.

Step 4: Top dress your lawn

Use a wheelbarrow to place the top dressing soil in small portions across your lawn. Depositing the soil in smaller amounts makes it easier to spread out evenly. Once you’ve placed these small piles across your lawn or in the areas of your lawn you wish to treat, you can then begin spreading the soil across the surface of the lawn. One way to do this is to use the smooth side of a garden rake to push and pull the soil about. There are several different tools that can be used to simplify the top dressing process further, including a lawn leveller, however, these aren’t always required. Make sure you keep the top of the grass visible, rather than covering it in soil, as this allows your lawn to still receive sunlight. When the top dressing is spread evenly across your lawn, give your grass a good water to allow the soil to settle in

We hope you’ve enjoyed learning about top dressing your lawn and why it can be a good idea for giving your grass a bit of a boost. Top dressing a lawn tends to be a relatively simple process, but some may find it a little time-consuming (particularly those with larger lawns). If you want to get your lawn top dressed but don’t have the time or need ride on mowing, contact your local Jim’s Mowing for assistance!