10041 Polk Street NE Minneapolis, MN 55434

Lawn Renovation Company MN

Topdressing, Grading, Seeding & Sod

Serving clients in the Minneapolis, St. Paul, Edina, Plymouth, Minnetonka & Blaine areas

Lawn Topdressing, Regrading, Seeding & Resodding Services

We provide the best service options to improve your lawn. Whether your lawn needs only a few targeted improvements, a complete renovation or topdressing to get rid of bumpy spots, KG Landscape can help!

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Lawn renovations before and after picture of aeration and overseeding in Minnetonka MN KG Landscape

Minnesota Lawn Topdressing Service - Improve & Smooth Your Lawn

Our lawn topdressing service applies high quality soil, smooths out bumps in the yard, fills in bare Spots with New Seed, reduces compaction and increases water and nutrient absorption to turf root zone. With top-dressing, all of these improvements are accomplished without killing your existing grass!

What is Lawn Topdressing?

We refer lawn topdressing as the process of spreading a thin layer of high quality soil over top of an existing lawn, at a thickness of roughly 1/4" layer on average . The goal is to add enough soil to thoroughly cover the lawn in order to achieve the intended goals of the service, but not going so thick that you kill the existing grass below.

Benefits of Topdressing Lawns

If you are a golfer, then you've noticed that golf courses in MN aerate and then top-dress their greens each year in the late summer or fall to reduce compaction, improve drainage and to ensure a smooth and firm putting/walking surface on the greens. In addition to aerating, topdressing your lawn at home can achieve all of these same benefits.

Topdressing also provides a number of additional benefits, including: increasing oxygen availability in the turf rootzone and improving water and fertilizer absorption. Below, is an overview of the key reasons to top-dress your lawn:

Fills in Bare Spots: after overseeding your lawn, topdressing covers the entire surface of the yard to completely cover the new grass seed. This ensures ideal seed-to-soil contact and uniform seed germination throughout the entire lawn.

Smooths Out Bumpy Uneven Lawns: Topdressing helps to smooth out a bumpy and uneven lawns by filling in the low spots with soil, without damaging the existing grass. Dragging the lawn with a screen/leveling bar like we do after applying topdressing mix is especially helpful for pulling soil into existing low spots.

Improves Soil Quality: Topdressing can make it much easier to grow high quality grass by amending soils that are heavy in clay or extremely sandy. Adding organic matter to very sandy soil also helps the ground hold moisture longer and will reduce the amount of watering needed.

Improves Drainage: we use a topdressing mix of sandy topsoil to help improve water infiltration in clay soils, reduce run-off and help prevent lawns from feeling soft or mushy. Topdressing with sandy topsoil is ideal for fixing mushy lawns, because sand stays firm even when wet (i.e. think of the firm and smooth sand at a beaches surf zone).

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We Combine Multiple Services with Topdressing Maximize Results

Top dressing is most effective when done at the same time as aerating and over seeding. This is because core aerating allows the new seed, soil amendments and fertilizer to penetrate into the yard.

Another huge benefit, is that seed germination rates when overseeding are greatly increased after topdressing, because all of the new seed in covered with soil, allowing the vast majority of the seed applied to germinate, not just the seed resting in the core aeration holes.

Topdressing is one of our most effective and highly recommended lawn renovation service options. We do a lot of top dressing in Edina, Minnetonka, Medina, Mendota Heights, Minneapolis, Maple Grove and Plymouth, as well as several other cities in the metro area, because of either heavy clay soils or virtually pure sand in certain places. Top dressing is also one of the best ways to repairs lawns damaged by grubs

Our Topdressing Service is a (5) Step Process

Step 1: We aerate your lawn (2) times

We double aerate your entire lawn, poking 2x times as many holes in the yard as a standard lawn aeration service, where new grass seed can germinate and the new topdressing soil can penetrate into the turf rootzone.

Step 2: We Overseed Your Lawn

We use a hand selected premium blend of sun and shade loving grass seed varieties. Our mixes contain several varieties of all (3) of the best seed types for MN lawns: Kentucky bluegrasses, fine fescues and perennial ryegrasses.

Step 3: We apply starter fertilizer

We apply of full dose of lawn starter fertilizer that contains phosphorus, which is an ingredient that is unique to starter fertilizers, because in lawn care, phosphorus is best used to optimize seed germination rates.
Our starter fertilizer also contains nitrogen and potash fertilizers, which help the grass new seedlings thrive after germination. This means there's no need to add more fertilizer until about 6 weeks after our topdressing service.

Step 4: We apply topdressing soil

Using a topdressing machine, we evenly apply a 1/4" layer of topdressing soil mix on average.
Our topsoil/compost mix depending on your goals and existing spoil conditions. The depth of soil being applied varies depending on the service option you select. For example, we offer light, medium and heavy topdressing options.
Heavy topdressing works best for leveling bumpy lawns, where as light topdressing is focused primarily on increasing germination rates when overseeding.

Step 5: Smooth the topdressing soil

We use a metal mesh screen leveling tool (we call it a lawn drag for short) to pull the applied material into low spots in the lawn, helping to smooth out small undulations in the yard. It's like using a really big rake to perfectly smooth out the topdressing soil after it's applied.
Fun fact, this is almost exactly the same tool used in baseball to smooth out the infield. It's also used on golf courses, after aerating and overseeding the same way we use them on your lawn.

What is the Best Type of Soil to Use for Topdressing?

We use a sandy topsoil mix that's engineered to be ideal for lawn topdressing. Our mix is a 70/10/20 blend of sand, organic soil and peat. Our sandy organic soil mix was selected by our in-house turf scientist and is a favorite for many golf course superintendents, because it is the ideal for topdressing turfgrass in many ways.

The reason our sandy soil mix works great for leveling lawns, is that sand doesn't decompose (shrink in volume) and settle like soils too rich in organic matter do. Why add any organic matter then? Well, soil that's ideal for growing lawns does need to contains some nutrients and be able to hold some water within the rootzone, which is why we do add a small percentage of organic material to our mixes.

However, soils that contain too much organic matter do not make for functional lawns either, because hold too much water and simply won't dry out. Poor lawn drainage can cause turf diseases and kill grass from being too wet for too long. Soil too rich in organic matter can also easily become too mushy to walk on, think of a bog.

As if those reasons weren't enough, soils that are too heavy in organic matter also have tendency to settle unevenly over time due to decomposing organic matter and frost heaving due to super saturation, which causes small rolling undulations and lumpiness in lawns grown on these types of soils overtime.

How Much Soil Should be Applied when Topdressing?

Applying between 1/8" -1/2" of topdressing soil over existing turf is ideal. When the goal is just to fill in thin or bare spots in the lawn, 1/8" works great. When the goal is to level out bumpy spots in the yard, a thicker application of up to 1/2" is most effective.

At KG Landscape, we offer a (3) topdressing service options: light, medium or heavy topdressing in order to best suite your lawn improvement needs.

We Offer (3) Topdressing Options to Best Meet Your Needs

Light Topdressing Service

Best for renovating thin lawns and repairing dead areas. Includes a double lawn aeration, overseeding, application of starter fertilizer and application of 1/8" layer of topdressing soil mix applied evenly throughout the lawn.

Medium Topdressing Service

Same as light topdressing, but provides a larger amount of soil which can be used for filling in low spots or patching larger sections of dead or thin grass. Includes double aeration, overseeding, application of starter fertilizer and application of 1/4" layer of topdressing soil mix applied evenly throughout the lawn to lawn.

Heavy Topdressing Service

When the primary goal is to level out a bumpy yard, we highly recommend a heavy topdressing. This is the same as the Medium topdressing, but provides even more soil which allows us to do a great job of leveling out bumpy lawns and make a big impact. Includes double aeration, overseeding, application of starter fertilizer and application of 1/2" layer of topdressing soil mix applied evenly throughout the lawn to lawn.

How Much Does it Cost to Top-dress a Lawn?

The cost of our topdressing service is directly correlated to the amount of soil we need to apply. The larger the quantity of soil applied, the higher the cost for the service. To give a broad price range, in general our (5) step topdressing service ranges in price between $1,800 - $4,500 for a mid sized lawn in the twin cities with no special circumstances.

The lower end of the cost range is for our light topdressing service and the higher end is for our heavy topdressing service. Other factors that impact pricing include, lawn size and shape, ability to use our machines, amount of slope and several other factors. Our actual bids a customized to your specific lawn.

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Not All Top Dressing Service are the Same!

There are other lawn care companies in the twin cities that consider adding a handful of 50lb bags of product to your lawn a "topdressing," however that would equate to a fertilizer treatment for us, not a topdressing. We are applying about over 20x times more product for our topdressing service than some of our competitors do, because we know what works and what doesn't. Using too little soil, will not help level the lawn or cover it thoroughly enough to increase seed germination rates when overseeding prior to topdressing.

We are applying 4,000 - 12,000 lbs. of premium topdressing mix for an average sized lawn depending on which service option you pick, which is the same as applying between (80) and (240), 50lbs bags of material. Want to compare pricing?

How to Compare Topdressing Service Quotes from Different Companies?

Ask them to include precisely how many pounds or cubic yards of soil amendments they will be applying for the price they quoted. Ask if their service includes: aerating the lawn 2 complete times or just a single aeration that pokes only 50% as many holes. Also, ask if their service price includes lawn overseeding, starter fertilizer application, and weed or grub control applications. You can also ask them how they ensure pre and post emergent weed control is going to be timed perfectly for best results.

Lawn Grading - Yard Leveling - Regrading Services

When it comes to grading for improved yard drainage, such as creating drainage swales and grading with proper slope to ensure your lawn drains correctly, KG Landscape knows how to get the job done the right way.

For those of you thinking, “Let’s just rip it all up and start over,” we can do that. Depending on your goals, budget and the current state of your yard, regrading and adding new topsoil or other soil amendments, might be your best option and will provide the fastest results.

A before and after picture of a house with a lush green lawn

The 3 Reasons to Consider Regrading Your Yard

Drainage Problems

If sections of your yard are draining toward the house or low spots are pooling in the yard is often necessary to correct these problems. However, there may be other drainage solutions worth considering as well. Improving your grading can create flat, usable lawn spaces and fix wet mushy areas in the lawn.

Bumpy / Uneven Lawn

No one likes walking or mowing a bumpy lawn. Re-grading an existing lawn might be necessary to smooth out uneven lawns to finally get the flat backyard most people want. These fixes will destroy your existing lawn and will require starting over with new seed or sod.

Poor / Bad Soil

If your soil is heavy clay or almost pure sand, the quality of your turf will be benefit greatly from the addition of new soil heavy in organic matter, such as a rich top soil mix. Adding 2" of top soil will greatly improve the ability of your lawn to retain the water and nutrients your grass needs. There are many options for soil amendments.

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Benefits of Aerating and Overseeding Your Lawn

Get thicker Greener Grass - Reduce Soil Compaction and Improve Turf Density

A lawn spreader is being used to spread fertilizer on a lush green lawn

All lawns are prone to compaction issues, caused by normal mowing practices and lawn usage. Compacted soils cause major problems when it comes to growing a healthy lawn. Compaction and prevents the water, air, and fertilizer needed by grasses from penetrating into the soil where they can be consumed by the grass roots. Clay soils are the most prone to compaction issues, but mot soil type can have compaction issues.

We use the core aeration method to reduce compaction and often times aerate and over-seed at the same time, which is a very effective way to increase turf density.

The cores removed by the aeration process open the soil allowing the new grass seed to get the seed-to- soil contact it needs to germinate.

Should you rake up the plugs after aerating? NO, the core’s themselves will break up and fill in the holes on their own in about 4 weeks through to rain and mowing. However they fill in the holes created by the core aeration with less compacted soil, which is exactly what we want!

A before and after picture of a lawn with a wooden fence

Improve Your Lawn by Over-Seeding With New Grass Varieties

By over-seeding, we mean applying new grass seed to an existing lawn as opposed to seeding a new lawn from scratch. Thin lawns will benefit greatly from aeration and over seeding. Over-seeding without aerating or otherwise breaking up the soil is not effective, as little to no seed will germinate. Seeds need seed-to-soil contact to germinate, which is what core aeration provides. We typically double aerate, meaning we run the aerator over the entire lawn 2 times in order to provide twice as many places (holes) for new seed to grow.

Using the best possible blend of grass seed for your lawn is very important. We use customized mixtures of the highest quality new varieties of grass seed to ensure your lawn looks great in the sunny areas as well as in full shade. Our Minnesota lawns are made up of 3 different types of grass: Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass, and fine fescues. Fine fescues perform best in shade, Kentucky bluegrass creates the densest turf, and perennial ryegrass germinates the fastest. These are all considered cool season grasses, which means they perform best in cool weather between 60-80 degrees.

Cool season grasses have evolved to drop their seeds in mid-summer, germinate late summer to early fall, and then spend the fall getting strong enough to survive their first winter. This is why we highly recommend aerating in the fall for best results, although we do have an effective method to achieve great results in the spring if you just can’t wait. Check out our detailed article on Everything you need to know about Seeding and Best Timing for Seeding in MN

The biggest challenge to successfully overseeding in the springtime is that the pre-emergent crabgrass application in spring prevents not just crabgrass, but most seeds from germinating for about 10-12 weeks. Because of this, seeding in the spring needs to be done very early in the spring, prior to applying crabgrass preventer. Another option for spring seeding, is to use a specialty pre-emergent crabgrass preventer product called Tupersan, that will stop the crabgrass seeds from growing, but won’t prevent cool season seeds from germinating.

A group of people are working on a lawn in a backyard.

Sodding Your Lawn

Sodding is the best way to instantly achieve a thick and green lawn. Sodding your lawn is more expensive than seeding, but comes with some obvious advantages. The first advantage is not waiting; your lawn is instantly green. Compared to seeding, sodding is more family friend in the sense that kids and pets can generally start using a sodded lawn within a week or two of installation.

In contrast to using sod, a seeded lawn can take about 8 weeks to come in (try keeping your kids and dogs off for 3 months!). If your lawn is seeded, you will have bare soil that will constantly be wet from watering, which can be a mess if your lawn in used during that period.

Some of our customers have us sod the front yard and seed the backyard to keep costs down. Another area where sodding makes a lot of sense is on hills and sloped lawn areas, where erosion can be a problem when trying to establish seed. Sod staples also help prevent sod installed on slopes from sliding down the hill.

Does Sod Grow Well in the Shade?

The types of grass used to grow traditional sod are sun loving varieties, consisting of primary of Kentucky bluegrass. For this reason, we recommend using sod in full sun to partial shade areas of your lawn and not in heavily shaded areas.

Sod installed in full shade with deteriorate within a year or two, as the sun loving varieties die off in the shade. To avoid this result, we recommend seeding any sections of your lawn that are heavily shaded, with a shade tolerant seed mix instead of sodding in those areas.

If you do wish to sod the shaded areas, that's ok too, just plan on doing some overseeding in those areas as needed in the future with shade tolerant grasses. Our shade seed mixtures consist of primarily fine fescue seed varieties.

Are There Any Shade Sod Options?

In the past, sod for shady lawns didn't exist. However, recently some specialty Minneapolis sod farms have begun growing shade sod suitable for lawns that receive reduced sunlight. These shade sod blends have varieties of Fescue grasses, which are specifically designed for shady areas and our Minnesota climate. These specialty shade sod varieties usually come with a high price point due to the special growing conditions at the shade sod farms. Fescue sod is a great option when a project calls for sod, but the conditions don't meet the sunlight requirements of traditional sod.

When Should you Fertilize a Newly Seeded or Sodded Lawn?

Lawns can thin out due to a number of reasons, but fertilization is crucial to maximize lawn health and turf density. No native soils in Minnesota naturally contain enough nitrogen to support high quality turf indefinitely. So fertilizing is a must to give your lawn the 3-4 lbs. of Nitrogen it needs to thrive every year. We recommend waiting 4-6 weeks after seeding, overseeding or sodding to apply lawn fertilizer.

Waiting until the late summer or fall to apply fertilizers to newly renovated lawns is ideal, in order to avoid burring out or damaging new seed or sod. Over fertilizing is a less of a concern when the weather is cool and when lawns are watered regularly via an inground sprinkler system.

If you’d like to learn more about out fertilizer and weed control programs, visit our Fertilizer & Weed Control Page .

A picture of a lawn that has been fertilized and unfertilized

Weed Control Tips Before, During and After Lawn Renovations

If you're lawn in currently overrun with weeds, we highly recommend having your lawn treated with a post emergent to kill existing weeds prior to seeding or overseeding. Preventing and removing lawn weeds is an important part of maintaining high quality turf in general and especially when over-seeding to increase turf quality, because killing the weeds prior to over seeding creates voids in the lawn once taken up by the weeds, where new seedlings can establish and fill in. Killing weeds prior to seeding as well as at the soonest safe time to do so after overseeding will help weeds don't overrun the yard and choke out the new grass seedlings you are trying to establish.

Correctly timing your lawn seeding and crabgrass pre-emergent is crucial! We take this timing very seriously as we know how important it is to achieve great overseeding results.

At KG landscape, we'll time this out perfectly for you to ensure top quality results. To learn more about how we time seeding and crabgrass preventer, check out our blogs on when to apply crabgrass preventer and everything you need to know about overseeding and correctly timing crabgrass preemergent.

Our conventional lawn treatment packages include fertilizers, a crabgrass pre-emergent application in the early spring and two broadleaf applications each year (spring and fall) to make sure your weeds don’t stand a chance.

How Soon After Seeding, Overseeding or Sodding Should You Spray Weeds or Apply Crabgrass Pre-emergent?

We recommend waiting at least 4-5 weeks after seeding, overseeding or resodding to spray for weeds. Spraying post emergent weeds control on young grass seedlings that are too young and fragile, can kill the new grass due to the stress. So we want the new seedlings to be established enough to withstand a weed killer treatment. This typically happens around the 3 time you cut the new grass.

You could technically spray new sod for weeds sooner that 4-5 weeks if the weather was cool (below 70 degrees), but odds are your new sod won't have any weeds early on and why risk adding stress to sod while you're working hard to get the roots to established.

Waiting until the late summer or fall to apply weed control treatments to newly renovated lawns is ideal, in order to avoid burring out or damaging new seed or sod during times of heat or drought stress.

During our hot weather periods in MN (July), weed killer can be "the straw that broke the camels back," so its not worth the risk.

Spraying for weeds in lawns that are watered regularly via an inground sprinkler system is less likely to cause damage, since drought stress won't be much of a factor for well watered lawns when the temps are in the 80's or below. However, we always recommend that you avoid spraying for weeds during the hottest times of the year (85 degrees or more), even in regularity watered lawns.