Lawn Leveling and Top Dressing
Golf courses pioneered this practice. We offer it to our neighbors throughout North Georgia who are seeking to improve the health and appearance of their lawns.
Top Dressing & Lawn Leveling
Our business is built around science-based turf management, and healthy turf starts in the soil.
North Georgia is known for dense red clay soil. Clay is an excellent foundation to build a house… but it’s certainly not the ideal soil profile for a lush lawn.
Top dressing is the practice of amending a soil profile by adding a leveling mix (typically sand and/or compost) to the lawn after aeration. The mix fills the aeration holes, smoothes out small ruts and low spots in the lawn, and allows warm season turfgrasses like Bermuda and Zoysia to dramatically thicken. Top dressing improves drainage, reduces thatch, and creates a stronger rootzone. The resulting turf is more drought-resistant and less disease-prone.
Our Process
We start off by evaluating the lawn on site, understanding your goals and partner with you to develop a plan.
All packages include core aeration prior to top dressing, and many clients choose to have us scalp prior to aeration.
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Main Benefits
Top dressed lawns look better. That's the short of it.
Aeration alleviates soil compaction and allows oxygen, water and nutrients to travel deeper, expanding the rootzone. Compost mixes introduce beneficial organisms to the soil profile, and sand helps loosen the compacted soil, allowing for Bermuda and Zoysia grasses to thicken.
Another main benefit is reducing the appearance of ugly mower scalp marks, and having a much smoother visual turf appearance.
Associated Costs
The main factors are any additional services you choose, amount & type of top dressing mix, and property size. We recommend a minimum of 1 yard of leveling mix / 1,000 sq. ft, and this is included in all quotes.
Our packages commonly range between $225 - $325 / 1,000 sq. ft and typically decrease as the property size increases. We find most clients have between 4,000 - 12,000 sq. ft. of turf.
Bundle with our weed control & fertilization program for more savings.
What To Expect
Top dressing and lawn leveling involve a lot of material, and we bring commercial equipment to handle the job.
Depending on your package, the lawn may be scalped, or the service may start with aeration. We then bust up the aeration cores, apply Nitrogen fertilizer to encourage quick regrowth, and begin top dressing the lawn. Leveling rakes and drag mats are used to work the top dressing mix further into the turf. Expect to irrigate the turf heavily for the next 7 days.
Most lawns become the neighborhood envy within 2 weeks.
New Construction Homes
In Georgia, it is common practice, almost always, for a home builder to remove all topsoil from a house site, leaving only compacted red clay to build upon. New sod is then laid on extremely compacted clay, the sod fails to develop a healthy rootzone, and ultimately struggles in the summer heat. You're left with thin and dull turf.
Top dressing after aeration amends the soil profile and improves water retention, allowing the rootzone to strengthen and a healthier turf emerges. Top dressing is much more affordable than a new sod job.
Lawn Leveling vs Top Dressing
These terms can be used somewhat interchangeably.
The reel mowing community prefers lawn leveling. Most homeowners who use a rotary mower say top dressing.
Lawn leveling also tends to refer to 100% masonry sand, whereas top dressing is typically a sand/compost mix. We recommend a sand/compost mix for most of our customers, but we also love to make a lawn look like a beach for a week.