Compost Topdressing

Compost Topdressing

One service ArborTrue provides to help improve your soil, lawn, trees, and landscape plants is compost topdressing.  Compost topdressing has a number of important benefits and can be a great way to improve and maintain your landscape.

What is Compost Topdressing?

Compost topdressing is the application of a thin layer of compost to lawns and other garden areas.  Compost is a product consisting of organic matter that has gone through a process of decomposition that is intended to be used as an amendment for soil and plants.

How is Compost Topdressing Applied?

Compost topdressing is applied in the spring or fall to lawns and other landscape areas and is applied at a depth of ⅛ to ¼ of an inch.  In terms of volume, covering a 100 square foot area at ¼ inch depth would take 2 1/12 cubic feet, and covering 1000 square feet at ¼ inch depth would take 20 ⅚ cubic feet.

Compost topdressing can be applied using wheelbarrows and shovels or with a mechanical spreader.  When compost is applied with a wheelbarrow and shovel, the compost is loaded into the wheelbarrow and taken to the appropriate location.  From there the compost is spread using a shovel over the area.  After that, the compost is raked in to help spread it out, to make it even, and to make sure the grass shows through when applied to grass.  With a mechanical spreader, the spreader is loaded, and it spreads the compost out across an area as a person walks with it.  With either method, applying compost topdressing can be very labor intensive.

In some situations, it can help to mow the grass before applying compost to make spreading the compost easier.  Also, watering after the compost has been spread can help it get to the soil.  Although watering can be beneficial, compost topdressing should be applied at a time when it won’t rain for a few days, to reduce the chance that the rain will wash the compost away.

What Are the Benefits of Compost Topdressing?

Compost topdressing has a number of important benefits for soil, trees, and other landscape plants.  Compost topdressing:

  Provides nutrients to soil

  Provides micronutrients to soil

  Helps soil to retain nutrients

  Helps plants to absorb nutrients

  Releases nutrients slowly

  Adds carbon to soil

  Promotes the growth of microbes – microbes help plants to absorb nutrients

  Helps reduce soil compaction in the long-term

  Helps to breakdown and decompose thatch

  Can help grass to grow thicker

  Can improve the health of grass

  Helps soil to drain better while still retaining moisture

  Adds organic matter to soil

  Improves the structure of soil

  Improves soil health

  Helps neutralize Ph in soil

  Can help you use less synthetic chemicals on your landscape

  Can reduce fertilizer use because compost adds nutrients to soil

Using compost can help reduce the need for synthetic chemicals in your landscape.  Compost can help feed soil and plants and can help promote a healthy soil biology.  It is a bit like the difference between nutrition and medicine.  Compost can help your soil to become and stay healthy so there is less need for something synthetic to help alleviate a problem.

What Should You Look for in Quality Compost?

It is important when applying compost topdressing to choose a high-quality compost.  Among other things, a high-quality finished compost is absent of debris, rocks, building materials, trash, dyes, living weed seeds, pesticide residue, and herbicide residue.  Quality compost can take years to make.  It should not smell bad and should instead have an earthy scent.  The compost should be naturally dark in color and can look black when it gets wet.

Compost topdressing with quality compost has a number of benefits for soil and landscapes.  To schedule compost topdressing for your landscape, contact us online or give us a call at 832-980-8733.