The word “top dressing” means that you spread “dressage” by hand or with a machine, which usually consists of sand mixed with soil of some kind.
When dressing, the dressing is intended to reach the bottom of the lawn and stay there or, preferably, walk further down into the ground. You can either buy the dressage ready-made or mix it yourself.
Within the circle of experts, there is far from agreement on the composition of the ideal suit. For the intensively maintained lawn – the golf green for example – there is much to suggest that the best suit is only sand without interference.
The size of the sand grains should then be about 0.5-1.5 mm. For the villa lawn, the suit goods available in the trade can be beneficial. It generally also consists of a mixture of sand and well-rotted peat soil or bark soil.
The suit. 2-4 liters per m2 lawn is adequate, can be spread in several ways. The easiest way is to, as in the drawing, distribute the calculated amount in equal piles which are then swept with “in the lawn with a piassava broom.
You can also use a low cart, according to the picture, and rake out the suit from it. The main thing is that it is evenly distributed and ends up in the lawn bottom.
You can also top-dress with a machine that is combined with a coarse net mat, which works the goods down into the grass. If you have a large lawn that needs to be dressed, there is reason to try to borrow these tools from, for example, the municipality or golf club.
Before the top dressing, you should either rake thoroughly with a steel wire rake or a vertical cut so that the felt of the withered and dead material in the grass bottom is largely gone.
If you leave the grass clippings behind, you should also then top-dress so that the decay, decomposition takes place faster. Top dressing with soil-containing goods gives a richer bacterial life in the lawn.
The best times during the year for top dressing are partly in early summer and partly in early autumn.
Mix dressage yourself If you have well-rotted compost available, you can mix it into excellent dressage yourself. Good materials are also peat soil and loamy garden soil. Bark compost is best, it is crumbly and falls down evenly on the grass. The second ingredient is sand, with a grain size of 0.5-1.5 mm. Neither coarser nor finer sand is suitable.
The finely sealed soil-containing materials, whichever one chooses, are mixed with the sand in the ratio of 1 part soil to 10 parts sand. Mixing yourself, even if the ingredients have to be bought separately, is significantly cheaper than buying ready-made. Admittedly, the purchased ready-mixed suit is fertilized, but there is hardly any advantage, it is best to spread the suit and manure where it moves.