Perth homeowners go and buy some lawn sand, give it a good spread all over the lawn, water it in and a few weeks later nothing much seems to have changed, the stuff has just disappeared into the grass, and the usual assumption is that the product didn’t deliver. The more accurate assumption a lot of the time is that the product just wasn’t the right tool for the job that time, perhaps because the user simply used the wrong product for their specific lawn problem, or maybe because it was applied in a way that was never going to turn out any results on Perth lawns. You pick up on this distinction before you even make the purchase, not after.
What the Product Is and Where the Confusion Comes From?
Lawn sand means different things to different people and there’s a lot of confusion out there, especially when you go to buy lawn sand and find the same name used for entirely different products. Most of the gardening advice Perth homeowners find online is coming from the UK or Europe where the soil is basically the opposite of what you get in Perth. A lot of gardening advice from those places is talking about products made from fine sand blended with sulphate of iron to stop moss and weeds, and sometimes with sulphate of ammonia to give the lawn a quick boost. But here in Perth, lawn sand is usually just fine, washed silica sand that you use as a medium to top dress your lawn. Two products with the same name, but nothing much in common except they both get called lawn sand.
When you try to use a product designed to work on heavy clay soils in Perth with its sandy, free-draining soil you’re unlikely to get a result that’s much good.
Pure lawn sand, as a top dressing in Western Australia, has a pretty useful role; it’s good for levelling out an uneven lawn, filling in aerating holes, helping to clear out thatch, and providing a good base for overseeding. Once you know what it’s supposed to do it can be a pretty useful tool. But try to use it to improve drainage or add nutrients to your lawn and you’ll probably just be disappointed.
Why Perth Soil Changes the Equation?
The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development has had a good look at the Swan Coastal Plain and says it’s characterised by deep, free-draining sandy soils with pretty low levels of organic matter and very low levels of nutrients. Lawns here don’t have a problem with drainage, it’s more about getting the nutrients and organic matter levels just right. Adding sand to a lawn that’s already pretty sandy without doing anything to the nutrient levels and organic matter content just isn’t going to do much for its health. And in some cases it can even make things worse, the sand just fills up the existing holes in the soil rather than opening them up as you would like.
Lawn sand top dressing does work in Perth, but it’s not a product you use to fix everything. You have to use it for the physical reasons outlined above, not as some sort of magic soil elixir. Most of the time when people are disappointed with the results, it’s because they pretty much misunderstood what the product was for.
How to Apply It and Where Most Perth Homeowners Go Wrong?
Application mistakes comprise the bulk of bad results:
- Proper application is 6 to 10mm thick per pass; too thick and it suffocates the turf to form a buried mat which makes for patchy recovery in the following year.
- Correct application time is spring to early summer; this is when Perth’s warm-season grasses, including couch, kikuyu and buffalo grass, are actively growing and can push through new topdressing within two to three weeks.
- Immediate spreading across the entire area using a rake or drag mat ensures that soft spots and an uneven surface texture do not carry into the following growing season.
- Light watering after application helps the sand sink through the turf canopy; heavy immediate watering will wash material off before it settles.
Buying by the Tonne vs. Buying Bagged
Bagged lawn sand from a hardware store is useful for small repair jobs and patching work, there is no doubt about that. The premium for bagged over bulk is substantial, and for a major renovation of over 50 square meters bulk delivery from local WA suppliers is the way to go.
At 6mm application thickness one tonne of lawn sand covers 100 square meters. At 10mm application thickness one tonne covers 60 square meters. Calculations of the required quantity followed by the order with a small margin of error avoid undersupply and surplus material. It is important that lawn sand is a clean, washed product, free of clay and silt content and consistent in grading. A lawn sand supplier that cannot tell you what kind of grading specification the product has should probably not be trusted.
Making Lawn Sand Part of a Sequenced Renovation
Application of lawn sand on its own yields small improvements in the lawn surface. As part of a properly done sequence of steps, lawn sand yields a much improved lawn surface in a single growing season. First aerate the lawn surface with a corer or solid tine aerator. Then apply lawn sand right away while the holes are still open. If you intend to overseed, spread seeds immediately after topdressing and water frequently until seed germination. Then make sure to feed the lawn with a slow-release fertiliser application 1 to 2 weeks later; this will feed the recovering turf during the growing season without causing extra top growth before the lawn surface settles.
The secret of successful lawn sand application lies in the sequence.
