Top dressing your lawn

Top­ Dressing Your Lawn

If your lawn is looking less than ideal, you may be in need of some kind of grass treatment like organic lawn fertilizer or lawn spraying services to get your turf in top condition; but knowing what’s on the schedule and how to do it can be more than a little confusing.

Address the Situation

In an ideal situation, you can lay the foundation for a great lawn early on by using good soil; but when time and environmental conditions start to take their toll on an existing and established lawn, things can become a little more complicated. After all, it’s harder to get great nutrients into soil that’s layered up in grass. Those formerly glorious blades of green can become a barrier to the soil; and to get past that challenge, your best bet can be top dressing your lawn, which basically means you’re applying a thin layer of soil over the grass. A landscape maintenance company will know how to top-dress a lawn and when is the proper time to do it, so ask their advice on the best ways to achieve the results you’re looking for.

Learn How to Dress

As you learn how to top dress a lawn, you also need to know how it will actually benefit you. Fortunately, top dressing is relatively simple. Areating your lawn will be your first step, because when you aerate, you’re creating channels in the soil below the grass line for the penetration of oxygen; water; and the top-dressing mixture, which is a combination of sand, topsoil, and peat or compost.

Request a Free Estimate for Your Residential or Commercial Landscaping Project

Request a Quote

Next, you’ll need to apply the top dressing mixture to one small area at a time, using a flat tool like the back of a heavy garden rake or flat shovel to spread it out. You’ll need to keep the density down to less than an inch thick over the existing grass. Any more than that, and you’ll actually risk killing the grass you do have. Spread the mix well over the areas you’ve aerated and into low spots in your lawn, and work until everything looks even and you see grass peeking through. Once you’re done, water the area; and give everything a few days to settle into place before you check it over for any spots that may need a little more work.

Dressing Well to Look Great

So now that your top dressing is finished, what can you expect? In addition to supplying your lawn with the nutrients in that new application of good soil, top dressing is great for evening out the terrain on your property, reducing your need to use fertilizers, and improving any drainage issues or drought resistance problems you might be having.

Get your lawn dressed and ready to go! Call the professionals at Executive Landscaping, Inc., today!