Top dressing your lawn is best conducted while the lawn is going through a growing phase. Applying a top dressing while actively growing will ensure that the lawn plants are well suited to being able to push up through the top dressing.
If you top dress in Summer, it’s important to keep the top dressing product – sand or soil – constantly moist. Our higher temperatures and long, sunlight filled days can cause the sand or soil to heat up in such a way that it damages the lawn if not kept moist. Just think of how hot it is to walk on sand at the beach in the middle of a Queensland summer day!
Top dressing products are available from landscape suppliers and nurseries. Washed river sand or a specialist top dressing soil mix is best. A top dressing soil mix is a high proportion of sand mixed with black soil with contains nutrients.
The top dressing method:
- Mow your lawn removing 1/3 of the lawn plant leaf
- Apply the top soil product
- Spread the mix evenly across the lawn with a broom or back of a rake, working it into the lawn
- Ensure that the top dressing is to a consistent depth of 10mm – don’t cover the leaf completely
- Apply fertiliser and water in well to promote growth through the top dressing
- If additional applications of top dressing are necessary, wait until the lawn has grown back completely before reapplying.
My friend is always looking for ways to improve the condition of his lawn. Your information that top dressing will improve growth and allow the plants to push through is really helpful. I will suggest that he look into buying top dressing soil and that he knows you suggest to keep the soil to a consistent depth of 10mm.