Gardeners are being urged to pour sand on their garden lawns in a bid to make them thicker, lusher, greener and more healthy. A lovely thick green lawn is something most gardeners aspire to. It’s a place to play and relax, and it creates an attractive centrepiece for a garden, bringing bright greenery to even the greyest backyards.
While keeping a lawn alive is pretty easy – grass is surprisingly hardy – keeping your grass healthy, thick and lush in the face of all the foot traffic, pests and weather conditions we see thrown at them is the tricky bit. That’s why gardeners are always looking for quick, cheap or easy ways to boost their lawn. And one such method involves ‘sanding your lawn’.
This is when sand is scattered across a lawn in order to boost the soil underneath. Crucially, this needs to be proper sand – the kind you find at a DIY store or garden centre – and not play sand for a kids’ toy.
Sand improves soil quality over time, thus boosting your grass in turn. It improves the texture of soil too, and its drainage. It also reduces your soil’s pH levels, which allows grass to roto deeper in the ground, for better drought tolerance. Given how hot conditions have been in our gardens recently thanks to climate change, some extra heat resistance is growing increasingly important in the UK.
Garden experts Plantura say: “Sanding lawns has various beneficial effects depending on the pre-treatment (i.e. scarifying or aerating), the soil type, the sand you use and how much you apply. Even the equipment you use for distribution influences the effects of sanding your lawn.
“Essentially, if there are problems that severely impair your lawn’s growth, a large quantity of sand will improve the long term health of your lawn. However, regular sanding with small amounts also supports the growth of the lawn in the long run and significantly increases its resilience.”
Lawn care site Moowy adds: “It’s as simple as it sounds: sprinkling a layer of sand to a maximum of 3 cm will help improve your soil — especially if it is heavy and clay-like. But don’t overdo it — you can exacerbate the problem if you add too much sand too often.
“Over time, the sand layer gets absorbed into the ground, improving and loosening the texture and drainage of your topsoil.
“Adding sand also helps neutralise the pH of your soil, which will help discourage weeds and strengthen the roots of your grass plants. This allows the roots to burrow deeper into the ground, providing better drought resistance and boosting your lawn’s immunity to diseases.”
While sanding is usually done at the same time as scarifying (also known as aerating), which is usually undertaken in spring or autumn, or both, there’s no reason you can’t do it now, or at least start planning ahead for the end of the summer and set a date to carry out your scarifying and sanding together.
