Topdressing your lawn and adding mulch to your gardens are two important spring lawn care maintenance tasks. These tasks not only help your lawn and plants establish strong roots, but keeps weeds at bay. So, by paying attention to your yard now, it will make your summer and fall maintenance all that much easier.
Topdressing is an excellent alternative to chemical lawn care. It is usually applied after aeration and dethatching. These tasks can be labor intensive when you’re doing your entire yard at once. To ease the workload, book one our aerating and dethatching spring maintenance packages.
What Is Topdressing?
First used by golf courses around the country, topdressing adds a thin layer of top-quality soil or compost to your already established lawn. Typically, a quarter to a half inch of soil is spread over your grass and then raked down into the thatch layer. Avoid applying too thick of a layer or it will block the sunlight your grass needs.
The Benefits of Topdressing
The main benefit of using topdressing is to establish a healthy, lush lawn by enriching your soil with the nutrients and microorganisms that your grass needs for a strong root system. It also reduces the need for chemical fertilizers providing an eco-friendlier alternative.
Topdressing also:
- Prevents water runoff and increases moisture retention.
- Levels out dips and hollow spots in the yard which stops water pooling.
- Encourages thatch decomposition
- Helps germination for newly over-seeded lawns.
To reap the benefits of topdressing, it should be applied after aeration. And once your grass starts growing and thriving, it makes it harder for weeds to take root in your lawn.
Why Should You Mulch Your Garden?
Another important spring yard maintenance task is to add mulch to your garden beds. Long-gone are the days of bare soil, weed-loving garden beds.
Your gardens are ecosystems that require the right nutrients to thrive. A bare-soil ecosystem means that your garden is starting from scratch or is in the initial stage of succession. In early-stage succession, plants that germinate quickly grow first. Guess what plants those are? Weeds.
Whereas mulch allows your garden to stay in a mature stage. It provides the nutrients needed for later stage plants to thrive. When mulching, apply 4″–6″ of wood chip mulch on top of your garden beds in the spring and again in the fall produces amazing results.
Benefits of Mulching
As we just discussed, it is a natural weed preventer, however mulch has many other added benefits.
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Adds Nutrients
You can buy mulch in different varieties, but it is usually composed of decaying organic and nonorganic materials. Generally, the main ingredient is wood chips which decomposes slowly and provides nutrient for strong, vibrant plants.
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Moisture Control
Mulch absorbs water and prevents evaporation, which helps with your watering bills and reduces watershed pollution. It also helps reduce soil erosion and compaction.
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Creates An Ideal Environment
Mulch helps your garden maintain optimal soil temperatures in hot and cold weather. It also reduces diseases, minimizes weed growth, and it aesthetically appealing.
Overall, the biggest benefit is that on your wallet. Mulching has substantial cost savings as you use less water, have higher plant survival rates, require less plant maintenance, and yields larger crops.
Mulch and topdressing are used in many yards for a reason: it works, and beautifully! For more information on the benefits of mulching or topdressing your lawn, contact us today at Rock Solid.
