Top Dressing you lawn: How does it help?
Top Dressing: A Smart Way to Keep Your Lawn Healthy and Beautiful
Because climate and topography impact your lawn’s health, it’s always a good idea to consider top dressing as part of your regular maintenance routine.
Top dressing involves adding a thin layer of material over your lawn to improve soil quality, level uneven areas, and promote thicker, healthier grass growth.
At Armdale Lawn Care, our top dressing is a special custom blend of high-organic topsoil (compost and manure) mixed with peat moss. This mixture retains moisture effectively and prevents seeds from washing away.
Benefits of Top Dressing:
- Improves soil structure and drainage
- Adds organic matter and essential nutrients
- Helps level low spots and minor dips
- Encourages new grass growth and thickens turf
- Assists in breaking down thatch
We generally recommend applying top dressing once per year. However, if your lawn is particularly uneven or has poor soil, two or more applications may be needed to level and enrich the ground.
Most soils in the Halifax area are loam-, clay-, or sand-based. Clay soils tend to be compacted and may require aeration before top dressing to allow for deeper penetration.
Prepping Your Lawn:
Before applying top dressing:
- Mow the grass shorter than usual and bag the clippings.
- Dethatch the lawn if there are patches of dead grass. This allows the top dressing to contact the soil base more effectively, without a layer of thatch in between.
We typically apply top dressing at a depth of ¼ to ½ inch, depending on your lawn’s condition—going slightly heavier if leveling is needed.
Afterward, we recommend a thorough watering to help the mixture settle and integrate into the soil.
If you need help with top dressing, we’re here for you—contact Armdale Lawn Care today!