Topdressing your lawn with compost is a low-cost way to help keep your lawn green and healthy. In order to topdress your lawn with compost, all you need to do is to spread a thin layer of compost over your lawn with either a rake or a fertilizer spreader. It's an easy process that provides the grass with the nutrients it needs to thrive. To learn three ways that topdressing your lawn with compost helps keep it healthy, read on.

1. Reduces Your Need for Fertilizer 

Compost contains a substantial amount of nutrients that will feed your grass. By topdressing your lawn with compost once or twice a year, you reduce your need to use fertilizer.

Fertilizers can make your grass grow faster and make it greener, but using too much fertilizer on your lawn can harm it. Excess fertilizer can cause chemical burns, which can turn your grass yellow. Fertilizer on your lawn can also be carried away by heavy rains, where it can end up in rivers and streams and cause algae blooms that harm fish.

Reducing the amount of fertilizer you need to use by regularly topdressing your lawn with compost also makes your lawn less expensive to maintain. If you have a compost bin in your yard, you can make compost for free with fallen leaves and food waste. Some cities also give out free compost to residents, made from grass clippings and leaves collected by the public works department when they maintain the local parks.

2. Keeps the Soil Bacteria in Your Lawn Active

Topdressing your lawn with compost is very beneficial for the bacteria in the soil. Compost contains bacteria along with the nutrients that they need to thrive. By putting compost on your lawn, you introduce more bacteria to the soil and make it a healthier environment for them.

Soil bacteria help keep your lawn healthy by aerating the soil and breaking down thatch. Thatch consists of decaying grass and roots that collect near the soil, and it can prevent water from seeping into the soil if the thatch layer becomes too thick. Soil bacteria will quickly break down the thatch that collects in your lawn. As they break down the thatch, they create gases that open tiny voids in the soil, which improves aeration and allows water to easily soak deep into the soil where it can reach the grassroots.

3. Stabilizes the Soil pH

Compost can also help maintain the pH of your lawn. Compost has a neutral pH, which means that adding it to the soil in your lawn will bring it closer to neutral. This helps keep your grass healthier since it won't grow well in soil that's too acidic or too alkaline. Soil that's too acidic or too alkaline will prevent grass from absorbing nutrients in the soil, which can make it grow slowly or even cause it to die.

Ultimately, topdressing your lawn with compost is a great way to keep your lawn healthy and green at a low cost. If you don't have any compost on hand or if you don't want to spread it onto your lawn yourself, call a lawn care service in your area and have them topdress your lawn. You'll reduce your reliance on fertilizer and help your grass grow healthier.

Contact a local lawn care service, such as OnPoint Lawncare, to learn more.