Top dressing, sometimes referred to as”Top Soiling” or “Levelling” is when you apply a layer of Sand or Organic material to your lawn either after scalping your lawn very low or vertimowing your lawn and even after you core your lawn.
There are many benefits and many ways to top dress depending on what it is you are trying to achieve,
Sand Top dressing
– This is when we use 100% fine screened sand, the purpose of this is to get the lawns surface as flat as possible for those who wish to cut shorter and reducing scalping and it is used to fill in holes, divots or ruts,
Sand is great as a levelling product as it will not break down at all like organic top dressers do, this means over time you will reduce the amount of sand you need to apply as it will eventually hold its level surface, much like a golf green which is all sand.
Organic Top dressing
– This is used when we need to start to change the soil structure due to poor upkeep or poor nutritional sand profile which can occur a lot in perth with new house builds where very poor cheap fill is used after building before a lawn in installed,
Organic top dressing is not preferred if you only want to achieve a flat lawn as it will naturally break down and lose its levelling properties within the year, it is only preferred when you want to boost the overall health of your lawn and don’t mind mowing at a higher height.
50/50 Mix Top Dress or Premium Mix
– This top dress shares the properties of both Sand and Organics being 50% of both, it will help with levelling and also add nutrients into your soil profile, you wont get the full benefits of sand or full benefits of organics but it is a great meet in the middle for a healthy lawn all year round for those who focus on lawn and soil health.