Top Dressing

Top dressing your lawn with Bespoke Lawn Care: building a better foundation.

 Bespoke Lawn Care in Row Town offers top dressing as a valuable service to improve the overall health and appearance of your lawn. This process involves applying a thin layer of a specific material, often a blend of sand, soil, and organic matter, over the lawn's surface.

 Why top dress? the benefits explained

• Levels the Lawn Surface: Over time, lawns can develop unevenness due to foot traffic, settling, or erosion. Top dressing helps fill in these minor hollows and bumps, creating a smoother, more attractive surface. A smoother lawn can also improve the quality of your mow, preventing uneven cuts.

• Improves Drainage: For lawns experiencing waterlogging, particularly on heavier clay soils, a sand-based top dressing can significantly improve drainage when applied after aeration.

• Enhances Soil Structure and Health: Top dressing can improve the overall composition of your soil, helping to break down heavy clay or sandy soils with repeated applications. The Lawn Pack says repeated application will slowly break these soils down and improve the soil structure. It also introduces valuable organic matter and nutrients to the soil, creating a healthier environment for the grass roots to thrive.

• Dilutes Thatch: Regular top dressing helps to dilute the layer of thatch, a build up of dead organic matter that can suffocate the lawn. This assists in its natural breakdown and prevents excessive accumulation.

• Boosts Germination Rates: When overseeding your lawn, applying a top dressing can greatly increase the success of germination. The dressing enhances seed-to-soil contact, protects the seeds from birds, and provides essential nutrients and moisture, speeding up grass growth and establishment.

• Increases Resilience: A well-topped, dressed lawn with improved soil structure and deeper roots is better equipped to withstand stresses like drought and heat.

The bespoke process

• Preparation: Before applying the top dressing, the lawn is mowed short, and any clippings are cleared to ensure the dressing can reach the soil surface directly.

• Aeration and Scarification (where needed): Often, top dressing follows other lawn renovations like aeration and scarification, which remove thatch and improve air circulation. It is recommended to apply top-dressing at least once a year after a period of turf renovation, such as aeration. This allows the top dressing to work its way effectively into the soil.

• Application: The top dressing material – a carefully selected blend based on your lawn's specific needs – is spread evenly across the lawn. This is done with specialised tools or by hand, depending on the scale of the area. A typical application rate is around 2-4kg per square metre.

• Working it In: The dressing is then carefully worked into the grass using a rake, brush, or levelling lute, ensuring it settles down to the soil surface without smothering the grass blades.

• Post-Treatment Care: After top dressing, the lawn may need light watering to help the material settle. It's advised to avoid mowing for at least a week, and potentially longer, to allow the lawn to recover and the dressing to integrate properly.

When to top dress? 

The ideal time to top dress is during the grass's active growing season, usually in late spring or early autumn, when soil temperatures are warm and moisture is sufficient.

 By utilising top dressing, Bespoke Lawn Care provides a targeted and effective way to address various lawn issues, ultimately leading to a healthier, more beautiful lawn in Surrey.