I would suggest getting a mow lawn. Did you look at all the pictures for the no-mow lawn? The only reason they call it that is because it happens to flop over and becomes unmowable when it is too tall. Furthermore, I would suggest getting a mix of Kentucky bluegrass (for full sun) and fescue (for shady areas). Of if you don't really have shady areas, then just go with KBG. KBG has the advantage of never needing to be reseeded (like fescue does), but it comes with the disadvantage of turning brown in the winter. Having said that, Marathon III is a very compact (dwarf) variety of fescue. That might work for you. Never till to prepare for a lawn. There, I saved you a couple hundred. If you want to soften your soil, try spraying it with shampoo. First test the hardness using a screwdriver. From what you say it won't even penetrate 1/8 inch. You'll need a hose end sprayer (Ortho red and yellow model is about $10). For 13,000 square feet you'll need about 40 ounces of shampoo. The hose end sprayer holds 32 ounces, so fill it up, take the screen off the end of the down tube, and start spraying. The setting doesn't really matter. You will need to spray as evenly as you can until you have used 40 (or more) ounces of shampoo. I suggest generic baby shampoo from Walmart. It has to be clear like baby shampoo. Spray that and then come back and apply a full inch of water with your sprinkler. Measure 1 inch using small cat food or tuna cans. Time how long it takes to fill the cans so you'll remember. Then wait a week to water again. Water again the following week. The second week after, repeat the shampoo and water. That should do it. If you get runoff before you can apply a full inch of water, then stop watering for 15 to 30 minutes and resume after the water has soaked in. If you get runoff again, stop and wait again. Repeat until you get a full inch into the soil. Since your soil is acting like clay (there are may reasons why a soil might act like clay), it might take more than 2 applications of shampoo to soften it and get it to accept moisture. A week after the second application of shampoo, water an inch again and test the penetration with a screwdriver. What the shampoo does is allow the water to penetrate much deeper into the soil. When that happens the beneficial microbes in the soil will come back and soften the soil for you. You can help them along by adding organic fertilizer periodically. My favorite is alfalfa pellets. At a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet you would need 6 bags of rabbit chow type alfalfa pellets. That size will go through a broadcast type fertilizer spreader. Then stop using whatever other fertilizers you were using because that's all you'll need. I use alfalfa on the federal holiday schedule. They are easy to remember and I am home those days. More specifically, for you in KY, first app would be on Memorial Day, then 4th of July, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. Living in the south I also apply on Washington's Birthday. You were correct in saying why your soil is "compacted", but you were incorrect about it being compacted. It is simply hard for the reason you said. Compacted soil requires mechanical means such as cattle plunging through soggy soil near the edge of a pond or playing football on saturated soil. The soil has to be saturated first or you cannot compact it. Oh and do all this seeding in early September when the summer heat is beginning to back off.

There are many types of small fruiting bananas as Christine mentioned; what you saw might have been a Super Dwarf Cavendish (the height description seems to fit the bill) although there are even smaller varieties such as Little Prince. You're in luck being in Florida as there are tons of nurseries with different banana types that could be better suited to your preferences, and plenty that only get to 5-6' before fruiting. Offhand the regular Dwarf Cavendish (that is, the Non-Super Dwarf) gets to 6-8' and usually produces big bunches, and the Raja Puri (5-6', resists wind well and is more cold-tolerant), Dwarf Ladyfinger (more of a dessert-type banana), and Dwarf Orinoco (extremely common, can be baked or fried as a cooking banana or be allowed to ripen to sweeter tastes and eaten out of hand ,versatile). What I'll do is link The International Banana Society's Website, which was very helpful to me when I first discovered my love/addiction to growing bananas a few years go. It's set up in a forum format similar to Gardenweb so navigation should be easy for you, and there is a huge wealth of cultivar and cultivation information in the various threads, along with Wiki page on different types of bananas. The members also tend to be very helpful, and I know quite a few that live in Florida that trade banana plants among themselves or are willing to give to pickups. Enjoy!

Yes, quite edible but usually ugly, as I said above, so you have to be prepared for that and just cut out the bumps and riffles and ridges and protuberances before you eat it. Tie a piece of yarn on the stem back of that blossom so you can ID that fruit to be, let it set a fruit and see for yourself. ( smile) A few folks I know take off those fused blossoms so that energy that the plant makes doesn't go into the developing fruit but you've just got to see one of those ugly fruits first. LOL And a few folks I know love to see those fused blossoms b'c they know the fruit will be large and they either grow big ones for competitions or just plain like to see how big a fruit they can grow. Carolyn

Do you have a photo? There aren't really any solid black frogs or toads in the Tulsa area, although some species can look dark from a distance.