Lawn Sand

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  Levelling a bumpy lawn

  Thin repeated top dressings fill the hollows without smothering the grass. It is the only way to level a lawn you are not prepared to lift and start again.

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  Reviving a tired lawn

  A lawn that has gone thin and patchy is usually a soil problem rather than a grass problem. Top dressing works on the soil.

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  Improving surface drainage

  Where water sits on the lawn after rain or a watering, sand through the surface gives it somewhere to go.

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  Discouraging moss

  Moss takes hold where the surface stays wet and the grass is weak. Improving drainage and thickening the grass removes the conditions moss needs.

Most of Perth is sand to begin with, which makes lawn sand a more nuanced choice here than it is in a city built on clay. If your lawn is struggling because the ground drains too fast and holds nothing, more sand is not the fix.

Where it still earns its place is levelling and surface drainage — a bumpy lawn, or one where water sits in the low corner after every watering. That is a shape problem, and top dressing is how you solve a shape problem without lifting the lawn.

If the lawn is thin because the soil is hydrophobic or holds no nutrient, that is a different job. A wetting agent, a soil improver or a top dressing blended with loam and manure will do more than sand alone. Tell us what the lawn is actually doing and we will point you at the right one.

• How do I top dress a lawn?+

  Mow short first, spread a thin even layer with a lawn spreader, then drag or broom it so it works down between the blades rather than sitting on them, and water it in well. Do it while the grass is actively growing.

• How thick should the layer be?+

  Thin. Thin enough that the grass is still showing through when you have finished. A thick layer smothers the lawn, and levelling is a job you do repeatedly over a season or two rather than in one pass.

• Will lawn sand kill moss?+

  Not directly. It removes the conditions moss needs by improving surface drainage and thickening the grass, which is a slower and more durable fix than something that kills the moss and leaves the wet patch behind.

• Does lawn sand feed the lawn?+

  No. It improves the soil the lawn is growing in. If the lawn is hungry as well as bumpy, feed it separately — or use Special Lawn Mix, which has loam and poultry manure blended through the sand.

• Lawn sand or Special Lawn Mix?+

  Lawn sand for an established lawn where the problem is the surface. Special Lawn Mix for preparing ground for new turf, or where you want the dressing to feed as well as level. For turf preparation it is the mix every time.

• When should I top dress?+

  During the growing season, so the grass can grow up through the dressing. Spring and early autumn suit most Perth lawns; the middle of winter does not.

• How much lawn sand do I need?+

  Length by width by the depth of the dressing, all in metres, gives cubic metres — and because a dressing is thin, that number is smaller than people expect. The calculator on this page does the arithmetic.

• Can lawn sand be delivered?+

  Yes, across Perth's southern suburbs, seven days. Tell us the address, how much you need and where it can be tipped. Confirm the current delivery cost when you order.

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