This is a lawn in Whitehead that I was asked to improve the drainage on.
Installing drains into a lawn is often a problem, many years ago as a young greenkeeper I remember my head green keeper explaining to me a drain is only as good as it’s outlet. If the water cannot get away there is little point in installing expensive drainage. This is a problem I encounter time and again on domestic lawns…
For most lawns the most cost effective strategy is to top dress a lawn with sand.
It’s important to choose the correct soil for topdressing for more information I have another blog post Read more: Sand for top dressing lawns that explains the rights and wrongs of using of materials used to topdress with.
This lawn was dressed with a sports sand as it is free draining.
The lawn was first hollow cored aerated and scarified with the debris all cleared and then overseeded with our premier lawns grass seed.
When topdressing it’s a perfect time to doing some overseeding, Read more: How to over seed your lawn
This will thicken up a lawn and help stop an evasion of weeds into the lawn it an effective method to rejuvenate your lawn. The holes created by the aeration along with the lines left from the scarification are a perfect seed bed and then the sand blankets the seed protecting it from the elements giving it a safe place to germinate and grow.
It’s easier to put all the sand in piles on the lawn and then spread it out, this way you get a more even surface.
Topdressing a lawn will also help even out the surface and help remove any unwanted undulations in the lawn
It’s then brushed or matted in, it’s important to try and mat in as much as possible as you do not want the sand to smoother the grass underneath. It’s often amazing how much sand you use in this process, especially after the lawn has been aerated.
This is the tool called the Mat that i use to dress the sand in with.
