How to Improve Sandy Soil for Your Lawn (7 Tips Based on Experience)

Having sand in your soil, in many cases, is actually a good thing as it improves drainage and helps get nutrients down to the roots of your lawn. But soil with too much sand will have the opposite effect and leave your lawn calling out for help. So, what can you do? Thankfully, you can take a few steps to improve the quality of your soil to get the sand working to your benefit. Let’s take a look.

How Do You Fix Sandy Soil for Grass? (The Short Answer)

To improve the quality of sandy soil, you will need to introduce a new layer of soil. For areas that are not planted, you can install a top layer of soil. Whereas for areas that are already planted, like an established lawn, you can repeatedly add thin layers of soil to slowly alter the soil makeup and reduce the percentage of sand.

The Problems that Sandy Soil Can Cause for Lawn Grass

The main issue caused by having sandy soil is that soil drainage is too fast. This means that any nutrients in the soil are washed away before the grass has had a chance to use them. This is because since your soil doesn’t retain the water, you’ll likely have to water your lawn much more than normal.

So, trying to keep your lawn nicely watered actually has a knock-on effect by washing nutrients away and, in turn, will leave your lawn struggling to feed. So what can you do? Let’s look at how to improve sandy soil for a lawn.

How to Improve Sandy Soil for Your Lawn (5 Simple Steps)

If you know that you have sandy soil and are just about to lay a new sod lawn or getting ready to seed, then there are a few steps you want to take care of first to improve your soil quality. Here are the steps that worked the best for me.

Test Your Soil First

Before you start adding new dirt to your lawn, you’ll first want to test your soil. Doing a soil test will give you an idea of what type of soil you’ll want to use to amend the properties of your sandy soil. Products like topsoil, compost, and manure have different pH levels that will affect the final outcome once added to your sandy soil. You should be able to get a soil test kit from either your lawn landscaping center or your local Cooperative Extension Service.

Calculating the New Material

Once you have decided what material to add to your lawn area, you’ll want to determine how much material you will need. Now if you are adding soil to a bare area, you can add as much material as you like just as long as you achieve the right pH level. I would say that ¼ – 1 inch of new material should be plenty.

You can use the following formula to calculate how much material you’ll need.

Length of the Lawn x Width of the Lawn x Depth of Material (L x W x D)

• ¼ inch of soil x 0.021
• ½ inch of soil x 0.042
• ¾ inch of soil x 0.063
• 1 inch of soil x 0.084

Example Lawn

• 30 Feet Long
• 20 Feet Wide
• 1-inch depth of New Material
• 084 = 50.4 ft3

Spread the New Material

Depending on the size of the area that you are amending, you have a few different options on how to spread your new material. A hand rake will work fine when dealing with a small area. However, for large areas, you may want to consider using a soil spreader.

A soil spreader basically works the same as a broadcast fertilizer spreader and broadcasts soil using a spinning disc feed by a hopper. These tools take a lot of the guesswork and manual labor out of spreading soil. So, a trip to your local tool hire store might be worthwhile if you have a large lawn.

Fertilize the New Material

Once you have your new material laid, you’ll want to add some additional nutrients to the soil. Now if you intend on either seed or sod straight away, then I’d probably wait until that is complete. This is so that you would only need to water once. So, if you refer back to your soil test, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what your sandy soil needs.

Water the New Material

The final step is to give the whole area a good soaking. I find that a sprinkler works best as it won’t disturb the soil too much and won’t wash it away. Also, if you have fertilized, make sure that you follow the instructions regarding watering. Usually, fertilizer needs about ¼ of water to wash it through correctly.

Tools & Material

• Soil Test
• New Soil Material
• Rake
• Soil Spreader
• Fertilizer
• Fertilizer Spreader
• Watering Hose or Sprinkler

Other Things You Can Do to Boost Chances of a Successful Lawn with Sandy Soil

One of the big problems with sandy soil is that nutrients wash away too quickly and leave your lawn hungry and struggling. One way to improve sandy soil for grass is to use a slow-release fertilizer instead of quick-release fertilizers like liquid products. This is because slow-release fertilizers are designed to dissolve slowly over a six to eight-week period and give your lawn continuous feeding.

Depending on what stage you are at, you might still have a chance to think about the actual grass type you want to plant in your yard. Several types of grass are accustomed to sandy soil and have a much better chance of thriving in sandy conditions. Here are a few examples.

Sandy Soil Grass Types

• Tall Fescue
• Bent Grass
• Zoysia
• Bermuda Grass
• Bahia Grass
• Seville St. Augustine

Is There Anything I Can Do to Improve Sandy Soil with an Existing Lawn?

What if you already have an established lawn and are wondering how to improve sandy soil for lawns that are already planted and growing? Well, there are a few different steps you will have to address, but you’ll follow pretty much the same process with a couple of changes.

Dethatching First

Adding soil to an existing lawn is called topdressing and needs to be done in thin layers, slowly amending the existing soil in stages. So, to add soil to your already existing lawn, you’ll first want to remove any thatch build-up. This is so that you are laying soil on top of the soil and not having a barrier of thatch. So, take either a dethatcher or a rake and remove as much thatch as possible, then add your new material.

New Material Thickness

The most important thing about topdressing is that you only add material in thin layers, preferably no more than ¼ inch at a time. This is so that you don’t suffocate the already existing lawn. The last thing you want to do is bury the existing grass and block the sunlight.

So, add ¼ inch of the new material, then allow the grass to grow and reestablish at the new height. Then repeat the process by adding an additional ¼ inch of the material. If you want to, you can continue this process as often as you feel necessary to amend your soil to the precise level you want. Just remember to do it slowly and not to exceed ¼ inch of material at a time.