How to Topdress & Level Your Lawn Using Sand or TopSoil? Beginners DIY Guide

The ultra light topsoil 1 cu. ft from home depot with 3 handfulls of play sand mixed in dries the soil enough for it to level it. Then seed and dress with peat moss if your pH can handle it or straight compost.

NEITHER.... use compost. easier to move about and has more benefits

Ok, thanks! I was going to use a sand heavy mixture on my garden that has a lot of pete in the soil. Now i'm rethinking this.

DON’T USE SAND if you have any clay in your soil. Will turn to cement like hardness.

Ive always had doubts about sand. Why would anyone want to add a non organic material?

I have always used good quality Top Soil whenever I’ve top dressed our lawn. I’ve been concerned about any potential salt content in sand and have avoided using it on the grass. When necessary, I will repeat the top dressing multiple times during the growing season in order to slowly fill in swales or deep recesses only after giving the grasses a chance to recover and grow. This process has always worked well.

I need a golf course turf tech on payroll. I will say thet ive found sharp sand mixed into a clay soil makes it far more nutrient permeable. My lawn has suck for ten years because i stopped using chems on it.

I am using both sand and topsoil. So far so good.

I want to do this where my brilliant former lawn guy used horrible dirt and clay to fill in ruts. It had weeds that will not quit, dnd that was 2 years ago. He added weeds to all my neighbors’ lawns as well. They won’t talk to me anymore!

There are certain kinds of grass that are better off with sand instead of soil. It all depends on the type of grass you have.

Big fan - love your videos. Know anyone in Southern NH that rents the ecolawn machine? thanks.

Would you recommend chocolate loam/sand mix to level?

I forgot what you were talking about because I was laughing at the volume and quality of the stock images 😂

Will sand help retain water during the summer times?

I got some scotts top soil conditioner and scotts lawnsoil and I'm going to mix them up at first I just put down the top soil conditioner until I found out to add scotts lawnsoil with it and then put the grass
Seeds on top.

How did you get the grass to grow through the sand?

Dirt is what you get on your clothes not what you plant in. No such thing as 'dirt' science.

I thank you for this video and I do agree on the sand as far as not holding nutrients. I have Bermuda grass and I heard a lot of people uses sand, but I a prefer a mix of top soil and compost. Thank you!

As always a Silver Cymbal video that's great and answers all my questions.

I will probably do 3 sand to 1 compost. Compost breaks down over time and I need to fill in spots but grass cant grow on sand alone.

Love your videos. Would love to see a video about this on the new property

Thanks for the quick overview

Sand doesn't compress like soil/compost does so it helps level the lawn much better. Sand does have no nutrients so if you have large divots that you are trying to level you should be filling with compost/soil first followed by sand. I use a 80/20 soil/sand for first stab at leveling then uses sand for final leveling but make sure to use the level tool he shows then a push broom to get down at soil level but I always compost top dress for adding nutrients. If you use just soil or compost top dressing you will still have an uneven lawn as they are more prone to movement during the different seasons in areas like New England.

Thank you, your video was helpful. My lawn's on a predominantly clay soil and I was thinking of using sand to topdress but now I know that'd be a mistake. So, thanks again!

Phil Unruh was my trigonometry professor

I have Kentucky blue grass and fescue. Never used sand to top dress / level my lawn. Thinking of a 50/50 mix of sand and loam. Should I try or just go with Liam. My lawn is very established. I had pine trees taken out last October and the tree guys made alot of ruts in my lawn so I want to level out plus overseed. Thanks

This helps! Thanks. Im in Scotland alot of rain my garden grass is soggy mud like after rain so I can't walk on it. Landscaper has said for new turf he will put down sharp sand under the turf as its great for drainage. This video has helped. Thanks

one small trick to help with clay soil and sand is to add compost or topsoil in addition to the sand. I remembered reading that just make sure they're mixed well enough and the compost is fine enough for the lawn. great tips by the way thanks :-)

Sand is good for wet areas where water sits in puddles.

The tool is called a lute

Silver Cymbal - love the channel. How do I test my lawn's soil to see which top soil I need?

Thank you so much - getting ready to top-dress my soil in a week. Am going with Black Kow and a topsoil w/Black Kow mixed in.

Good lord, everything about this video is incorrect or flat out wrong

Glad I came across your video before doing anything! My lawn is in horrible condition, and I'm about to get several yards of soil to topdress. I just watched another video before yours that suggested using sand. This had me second guessing. But your video explains better and makes more sense, especially since I have a good amount of clay compound. I'm also on a mountain/elevation, so my yard is drained and dry to begin with. Top soil it is!!

Z

Using sand is okay. It when you start layering it, I.E. Sand /soil/ sand/ soil and so on that you get that (concrete) type bed.

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

Great advice

Great advise. Thanks

Yes, this is a good video. I see videos with people spreading sand and it just doesn't make sense, nor it the reason for it explained. Thanks.

My new lawn is exceptionally soft and mushy! The spread native topsoil under the sod. Everytime it is watered it becomes a sloppy mess. They rolled it, but it is still lumpy! what can be done?

You need coarse sand if you wanna make it leveled, topsoil can be added once a couple of years

Sounds like I’m going to stick with good old fashioned top soil. That leveling tool looks pretty interesting too.