Improve Your Lawn Right Now By Boosting The Soil

Maybe your like

Statesman LogoHearst Newspapers LogoTRENDING:Texas A&M vs. Miami odds|Where to eat for the holidays in Austin|Social Security|Texas State football|Texas State vs Rice betting oddsNewsImprove your lawn right now by boosting the soilBy Nolan GoreOct 3, 2017

Top dress your lawn to fix our inadequate soil. Top Choice AustinAustin American-Statesman

Austin area soils are famous for their poor quality. Ask any avid local gardener and they will give you a list of their soil woes. Ultimately what it comes down to is we have very little soil, the soil we do have is rocky, and it’s full of clay.

This poor soil is hard on lawns. There is a huge list of things lawns need to be happy, but several of the big items are sunlight, air, water, and nutrients. Soil quality can have a big impact on three of these four items. Plants absorb water, nutrients and even air through their roots. As a consequence, soil quality can have the biggest impact on the health of your lawn.

Article continues below this ad

A good soil will have a lot of organic mater in it to provide nutrients, will have the capacity to hold water, but is also able to drain well allowing the soil to dry out. A soil’s ability to do those three things are impacted by the type of soil, and the soil structure.

Soil types

There are three main types of inorganic material that all soils are made of. These particles are called clay, silt and sand. Clay is the smallest particle size, and is “sticky” — the chemicals that form clay bond to things easily. Silt is only slightly larger than clay, but doesn’t bind to things like clay does. Sand is the largest particle of the three, and drains very well and resists compaction. An ideal mix is called loam, and is a mixture of all three in roughly equal proportions. Combining loam with organic material creates the perfect soil.

Statesman Logo

Want more Statesman?

Make us a Preferred Source on Google to see more of us when you search.Add Preferred Source

Because our soil consists of mostly clay, with very little organic material, it doesn’t drain very well and has very few nutrients. The clay binds with water as soon as your irrigation kicks on. The top layer of soil will saturate quickly, preventing water from soaking deep into the soil. If you continue to add water, it will run off the soil rather than soak in. It is one reason we are so prone to flooding in our area.

Article continues below this ad

The clay also binds to nutrients like fertilizers, but binds in such a way that those nutrients aren’t available for plants to use. Clay is a bit greedy. And it binds to itself. It creates a compacted layer of soil that excludes air and is difficult for roots to grow through. On a hot summer day in Austin the soil can often feel harder than concrete.

Fixing clay soil

Unfortunately, there is no quick fix to change clay into perfect soil. What we focus on is changing the soil structure, rather than try to change the type of soil. You improve the soil structure by breaking up the compacted clay and adding organic material. This gives the clay something useful to bind to, and it is a material that combats every problem that clay causes. The organic material will improve drainage, resist compaction, and both holds and releases nutrients and water.

Clay soil mixed with a lot of organic material is transformed and behaves more like an ideal loam soil. Water can seep deeper into the soil, it resists compaction, and plants love it.

Article continues below this ad

In nature, organic material is added to the soil slowly, over decades. Plants grow and die, leaves fall and other organic materials fall into the soil. As this natural organic material decomposes, it is incorporated into the soil by worms, insects, fungus and bacteria. The same is true in our yards. Grass clippings, leaves and other debris are typically mulched by our mowers and the organic material gradually becomes a part of the soil.

That is where top dressing steps in. It is the best way to add organic material to a lawn. Top Dressing is a shortcut, where a thin layer of compost rich soil is spread over the lawn. Our compost soil blend is a mix of 50 percent compost and 50 percent loam — basically a perfect soil.

What is compost?

Compost can consist of many things, but it is a general term for organic material that has already started the road to decomposition and incorporation into soil. It is not a raw material. It has been processed by bacteria and fungus (100 percent natural process,) into a form that is immediately useful and beneficial.

Article continues below this ad

Compost and other organic materials are used up over time. It’s basically what the plants live on, but bacteria and fungus also continue to break down the organic material. At the end of the process we end up with a material generally called humates. Humates are amazing for plants and soil. Water soluble humates are often included in fertilization programs. But it takes tons of compost to produce a small amount of humates.

What this means is that organic materials and compost need to be added to the soil regularly. People generally add tons of organic material to their planting beds without even thinking about it. In beds we call it mulch, and it adds a lot of organic material. Ever wonder why your grass seems to grow better in your planting bed than your lawn? Now you know.

Top dressing with compost adds those same much needed organic materials directly to the lawn. We don’t mix them into the soil, mostly because it would damage the lawn. But, generally the grass will grow up through the top dressing and the compost is incorporated directly into the lawn. Over time, worms and insects will help mix this thin layer in with the existing soil.

How to top dress a lawn

Article continues below this ad

Spread by hand a thin layer of perfect soil over the entire lawn. Because it is spread over the top of an existing lawn, it will be loose and not 100 percent even, but because it is a loose material it will eventually settle down between the leaves of the grass. This process goes faster with regular irrigation or a light rain. The water helps wash the mix down into low areas where it is most needed.

Top dressing can be a tricky service to complete. The grass needs to be short. The weather needs to be warm enough that the grass is growing, but not so hot that a layer of soil will smother and bake the ground. Typically this means spring and fall.

Top dress twice a year if you can. If you can’t do it all at once, break it out and tackle it in pieces.

New neighborhoods benefit from this service more than an established yard. In new neighborhoods builders and developers typically remove any existing native topsoil, and replace it with a rock and soil blend that is perfect for constructing houses. This soil blend is great at keeping foundations from cracking, but it is sterile and has zero organic mater in it. New yards and lawns struggle for years as the soil slowly improves. Adding compost speeds the process and injects life into new yards.

Article continues below this ad

Neglected yards and landscapes also need top dressing badly. If your lawn hasn’t been top dress or fertilized in a decade the soil will be in horrible shape. Typically, the grass gets thin, the soil becomes brick hard, and worms are nowhere to be seen. Top Dressing will help kick the natural processes back into gear, and will get everything growing again.

It is also useful in lawns that are stressed or damaged, or even struggling with disease. Improving the soil will help improve the health of the lawn overall. It’s the equivalent to hot chicken soup when you’re sick. If your lawn isn’t in the best health, top dressing can help.

Combine it with other lawn care

There are some beneficial synergies when you combine top dressing with other lawn care.

Article continues below this ad

The first is lawn mowing. If your lawn is being cut correctly and your grass clippings are being mulched back into the lawn, top dressing will give your yard an added boost. The mulched grass clippings will sit on the surface of your soil until they decompose. Adding compost over those clippings speeds the process up a lot. The compost already contains the bacteria and fungus needed to decompose the clippings quickly.

The second is aeration. Aeration breaks up the soil, loosening the clay by pulling plugs of soil out of the lawn. Top dressing immediately after aeration replaces those plugs of soil with loose, compost/loam soil that does wonders. Because the lawn is full of holes, the compost and loam gets much farther down into the soil.

A third synergy is winter over-seeding. Adding a thin layer of incredible soil over a lawn right before adding grass seed does incredible things. The good soil will be in direct contact with the delicate emerging grass seed, and will make your winter lawn absolutely amazing. You are basically giving the seed everything it needs to grow well and become a thick lush lawn as quickly as possible.

Article continues below this ad

Nolan Gore is the general manger for Top Choice Lawn Care and served in the Marine Corps.

Nolan GoreMost Popular1.Texas Longhorns fire assistant football coach, reports say2.An Austin hotel sold the most alcohol in 2025. See the full list3.Austin auditor: Former utility employee routed nearly $1M to fictitious vendors4.Micro Center to open storefront at Fry's Electronics former home5.Citrus Bowl: Texas Longhorns brace for opt outs of Michigan bowl gameMore NewsTexas football tickets vs Michigan: Best prices for 2025 Citrus BowlGeorgetown approves incentives to bring Pegatron Corp. to cityTexas A&M vs. Miami odds: Will the Aggies win CFP game?Where to eat for the holidays in AustinThe top 10 fine dining restaurants in Austin for special occasions and splurgesEditor's Picks Amy Lopez cooks dinner alongside Kiana Young, 7, at their former home in Austin. The Lopez family has since moved into a roomier affordable housing community but they need basic items to fill the home like bed frames, mattresses and kitchen items.

Amy Lopez cooks dinner alongside Kiana Young, 7, at their former home in Austin. The Lopez family has since moved into a roomier affordable housing community but they need basic items to fill the home like bed frames, mattresses and kitchen items.

NewsAfter finding a new apartment, family still needs help with the basics The sculpture “Monochrome for Austin,” pictured in 2015, sits in front of the Norman Hackerman Building that houses labs for the College of Natural Sciences. The College of Natural Sciences could absorb Information Studies, currently in its own school, according to an email sent by leaders of both schools.

The sculpture “Monochrome for Austin,” pictured in 2015, sits in front of the Norman Hackerman Building that houses labs for the College of Natural Sciences. The College of Natural Sciences could absorb Information Studies, currently in its own school, according to an email sent by leaders of both schools.

EducationUT may merge school, programs in bid to create 'center of excellence' U.S. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries speaks against Texas redistricting efforts at a news conference at the Texas Capitol in Austin, Thursday, July 31, 2025. Listening are U.S. representatives Greg Casar, Lizzie Fletcher and Al Green.