An added boost to help your lawn is to do a Compost Top Dressing at the same time as aeration and seeding because the seeds need direct soil contact to germinate. We cannot say enough about how awesome a compost top dressing is for a lawn! It doesn’t matter if you have a warm season lawn or a Fescue lawn compost top dressing makes a huge difference. The timing for when you can top dress lawns is the same as the timing of when you would aerate a lawn. We recommend aerating first and then spreading 1 cubic yard of high quality compost for every 1,000 square feet of turf.

For Fescue lawns, we recommend doing a compost top dressing at the same because the seeds need direct soil contact to germinate. We will aerate and seed first and then come back with a rich layer of compost (about a quarter of an inch), essentially making a seed sandwich. The compost top dressing will ensure the seed receives 100% soil contact. Another great benefit of compost top dressing, it will completely change the soil structure for the better.

For warm season lawns, the aeration and compost top dressing is typically done in May or June. The grass should be fully greened up when the top dressing is performed in order to get the best results from it.