Thanks for the kind words. The best way to decrease the amount of medium it takes to fill a pot; and, to limit the volume of excess/ perched water a planting can hold is by using ballast. Note (fig D) how much less excess water a planting can hold when using an overturned pot as ballast. The figure on the right below illustrates how you can use brick or hollow plastic blocks as ballast. If you were to turn the bricks on edge and add 2 more, you would almost entirely eliminate this planting's ability to hold excess/ perched water. Make note though, that there must be at least 1 continuous/ unbroken soil column from the top of the soil column to the pot bottom. If the bricks were turned 90* and 2 more added such that the bricks or other material filled the pot bottom so that there was a 2"x2" gap between the bricks to provide the unbroken soil column I mentioned, the only grow medium in the entire planting capable of holding perched water would be the medium in the 2 x 2 space between the bricks. Al

I just read this morning in a little booklet called "No Toil Power Soil" that you can turn your large containers into a lasagna type garden. "Start by covering the drainage holes with several thin layers of wet newspaper. In very large pots, you can fill the bottom with empty cans turned UPSIDE DOWN...next add a 2-inch layer of compost, then a layer of potting soil, then more compost, then more potting soil yada, yada, yada. Pull back the layers and pop in your plants. After planting, cover the soil with a mulch to preserve moisture. Later in the season you can fertilize with compost tea or liquid fertilizer of some sort. I have yet to try that in particular, but it sounds like a very good idea. In my big containers, I use large chunks of landscaping mulch in the bottom third of the pot. It has always worked for me. The roots go down into that mulch and seem to like it. Hope this works for you.

I stick evergreen branches in mine. In fact I'll be headed out this weekend to pick the branches. I try to get a variety of evergreens. For December, I add some branches that I spray paint red or silver. In January I add some little snowmen on sticks. I add some hearts for February. I get rid of them in March and put my pansies out. We're in the planning stages of a garage renovation. When we widen the driveway, I'm thinking of some large cedar planters to form the boundary between lawn and driveway. I'm thinking of some dwarf conifers in those planters. I would put annuals around the base in the spring, summer and fall. And for the winter I could decorate like I do my front step containers.

I would tend to fill with sand, especially in FL. If you want topsoil then put that in the top 6 inches, but I would go with sand all the way to the top. I've had excellent experience with grass on sand. A skidsteer or bobcat is the wrong tool to prep the yard. The pros use a tractor with a boxblade. You can put a boxblade on a bobcat but there is something about the dynamics of how a bobcat works compared to the stability of a tractor that makes the tractor a much preferred tool. Here's a box blade in action. The skid steer has a different tool (maybe a power rake or a tiller). But final prep is the box blade. For a normal yard it would take a tractor an hour to fix. If you tried to do it with a bobcat it might take a day or two. You don't need to do anything to the existing plants. The box blade takes care of them. For 1/3 acre I might try to build a drag and prep it myself. Rent a hand held power rake to take out all the existing grass and brush. Then run the drag over it. If you have a riding mower you could pull the drag behind the mower. Here is a link to pictures of a drag. I made one out of chain link fencing with some boards on it for the weight.