It does not matter what order these products are applied. Mix them together if you wish. A couple ideas for you. Since this is the lawn forum, I assume you are trying to grow a lawn on the land described as "covered with oak trees". Realize that grass will not grow well in deep shade. Fine fescue blends containing Hard, Chewings and Creeping red have the best performance in moderate shade. Mulch you Autumn leaves into your lawn and allow them to decompose in place over winter. Excessive leaves should be piled and composted over winter and used as mulch in your beds or allowed to decompose further into leaf mold compost. Trees in the middle of your yard should have a mulch ring around them approximately the diameter of the drip line. Rake your shredded leaves into this mulch ring in the fall. Plant some shade loving flowers and ornamentals there. Hostas are good for shade. Good luck with your Michigan lawn. Bill Hill

Almost all plants in an Alpine garden needs a slope. Usually rocks are used to support the slope. Drainage is paramount, no matter how you achieve it. Adding sand to good loam or clay and you get stucco if you have no slope and it retains water. Free draining is the key. Build your berm as high as you are able. Some alpine plants prefer limestone based soil and some prefer acid. Some don't care what the ph is. I smear mud on rocks, plop some sedums on it, and walk away. You can arrange the rocks as in a rock outcropping, dump gravel between them , squeeze a few plant in, and watch things grow. An alpine garden does not need plants wall to wall. Mike This next picture isn't meant to look good, but to show how sedums and succulents can be grown in even the most adverse conditions. Here they are growing on wood and rocks with just a minimum amount of soil. Friends come by and add or subtract stuff all the time. I'm not in charge. lol Ignore the telephone booth. It's a joke. I'm still trying to find an appropriate place for it. Mike Here's another part of the garden that looks a little alpine. It needs a major makeover as I haven't touched it in about two years. Time constraints, you know. I have done nothing to the soil except give it a slope. It's good loam on the acid side. Mike...on vacation

Man,that was close,I had my thumb on the flint. Where is Don when we need him?? he is a guy that comes over here every so often that lives in S America,anyway inside floor finish 101, controled inviroment, install the T&G material sand it flat and smooth, some of the sawdust will get in the small space between the flooring the old Carpenters wanted this but latley they have vack systems hooked up,anyway the idea is to have a seamless look, clean up all the dust put on a few coats of urethane inbetween light sanding,allow plenty of time for each coat to dry in a dust free area.Outside finish 101,non controled inviroment, temp change sun,rain,hail,snow things like that. It dosent matter if the project has a roof over it its still outside exposed to weather changes,rain,cold,hot, sun this works on the finish up and down and will shatter a urethane finish,like breaking glass only on your deck the chards will be glued to your deck and will be all but impossible to get off.The finish has to move with the weather. So how do they do it in S America??? thats why I was hopeing Don was around,anyway I am thinking they do it with a hand rubbed finish,that is they are building coats with a product that sticks to the wood and to itself over time they build a finish that will hold up,actually bonding it to the wood like burnished leather,burning it in with a lot of labor. And of course its not a one time thing,them Boys are working it every now and then so you Folks will come back and have a drink with them again. Then there is the drainage thing,water is going to get thru that floor,it dosent matter how little that might be,it has no place to go so it finds a home in the ipe, the ipe being its own freindly self,swells up to make room for more and KaBongo your floor is buckled. Its not the ipe guys fault he was just being freindly,its your fault for not providing drainage and cloging what drain there was with sawdust and urethane. So how would you do it?? John you ol smarty pants! crawler thu glass know it all!!!We might want to start another topic for this,its time for my pain meds. J

Sadly, the squirrels seem to have dug up and eaten many if not 90% of what I planted. I can tell by the position of the holes pocked all over one region of the garden. I never did get around to marking them. Couldn't find rocks at the right time. I used a small mound of sand but after one rainfall could not spot them. I didn't know these were squirrel targets. I planted tulips at the same time, and those I protected with wire mesh pinned down. There went $ 80.... I will hope some made it and will come up later. I don't know when to expect them in their first year, though. The established red trillium I had before have emerged. So have 3 new ones in a different garden the squirrels must not have known about. ;) They were the small "leftovers" so I didn't plot what they were. New ones were giant white and also yellow trillium, as well as more red. Also dutchman's breeches.