Home - Garden
Materials You Can Use To Cover Grass Seed With For A Lush Lawn
By KATE NICHOLSON
Help your freshly sown grass seeds sprout this spring before drought, disease, and pests get to them by covering your lawn with organic matter like topsoil, mulch, or compost.
Known as top-dressing, these materials improve the germination rate by protecting the seeds from weather extremes and hungry critters, especially in dry, sunny climates.
Covering the lawn also keeps the soil moist, so it’s easier for seeds to break through, and it keeps the soil and seeds in place on sloped lawns during heavy rain or strong winds.
You can use straw but make sure it’s free of weed seeds, and it must be removed after the grass sprouts. Compost is ideal, as it stays in place, feeding the soil as it breaks down.
Another option is peat moss, but it must be heavily watered to stop it from repelling water and blowing away. Fine-grade topsoil, sawdust, shredded paper, or burlap sacks work too.
Synthetic options include green mulch or spray-on hydro-mulch. Alternatively, you can use permeable landscaping fabrics, like polythene sheets or erosion control blankets.
Your top-dressing should be no more than a ¼ inch thick — you should be able to see some seeds through it. Apply compost more liberally than other options, up to a ½ inch deep.
Seeds coated with inoculum, fungicide, and other beneficial and protective additives, as Bermuda grass and clover seeds often are, must be covered with a ⅛-inch layer at most.