Thanks weed, I did not know that bahia was paspalum. There are several grasses which grow very nicely on pure sand. You do have to water, mow, and feed them properly if you want to keep weeds out. Before you open your bag of seed, read this page all the way through and decide if you still want bahia. As you probably know, bermuda and St Augustine are THE grasses of choice for central Florida. You will be bucking the trend. We have sensational St Augustine lawns on the Texas coast growing in pure beach sand. I'm afraid that any savings you achieve from buying cheap seed might be lost to repeated lawn mower maintenance from mowing this tough pasture grass. I choked when the guy told you to till the seed in. You don't bury grass seed to get it started. Grass seed, especially pasture grass seed, always must be at the top surface to sprout. Possibly the hardest part of this project will be getting the sand level. If you water the sand will it firm up so you can walk on it without leaving deep footprints? If so then I would suggest leveling the sand by dragging a piece of chain link fence behind you. It might need something to weigh it down but in sand it might not. Drag that around by a rope until you have it the way you want it (NO LOW SPOTS IN THE MIDDLE - it should crown high in the middle). Then water it from outside the leveled area to firm it up. Then scatter the seed/millet (why millet?). Then it would be good to roll the seed into the ground but I'm afraid of changing the profile of your leveled surface. Somehow you need to push the seed into the top surface of the sand without pushing the sand around. On more firm surfaces they use a roller. If the area is small enough you could just walk all over it. That is plenty good enough. Then keep the seed moist all day long for the next several weeks. In most places that means watering 3x per day for 10 minutes, but again, in your sand it might mean watering 5x per day. It depends on humidity, wind, and sunlight/shade. When you think you have 80% of the seed sprouted, start to back off on the frequency of watering but increase the time. Eventually it would be good to be watering once per week for however long it takes to keep the grass alive for a full week. Until you get good roots established, you might need to water 2x or 3x per week. That would be for the rest of this growing season. Then back off to monthly watering in the cooler months. As for fertilizer, I would not apply any until you are mowing the grass.

Sounds like your dry, sandy soil will be the primary limiting factor. A magnolia would probably not be a very good choice in dry soil. American smoketree will tolerate dry soil, but keep in mind that in time it will have a tendency to send up suckers from the root system (may not be a problem if it is surrounded by lawn); it may also be hard to find. Redbud will probably be OK, although it prefers less sandy soil and higher pH. A crabapple would be fine, and there are many varieties to choose from  look for one grown "own root" to avoid suckering from the rootstock. Blue beech is probably OK, but may need extra watering during establishment. Shantung maple is a nice tree, but you probably wonÂt be able to find ÂFire Dragon locally, and even finding the straight species is difficult. If you ask your local nurseries for it, they will probably suggest ÂNorwegian Sunset or ÂPacific Sunset which are both Norway x shantung hybrids  these may be too large at maturity for your location. I agree with basic that Korean maple is a beautiful tree, but it wonÂt be very happy in dry soil. You may want to consider one of the tree lilacs  ÂIvory SilkÂ, ÂChina SnowÂ, or ÂBeijing Gold  I think ÂChina Snow has the best bark color of the 3  they will also need extra watering during establishment. Serviceberry does reasonably well in sandy soil, and a few varieties are available in "tree form" (single stem).

There was a discussion a while back on "What is really in those bags of topsoil." or "What is topsoil?" The consensus was that there could be almost anything in them except good garden soil. Garden soil can usually be purchased by the yard at local nurseries at considerable less cost. One source here sells finished compost by the bag and that's the 'cat's meow' of soil amendment. Try to find that if you have no other source of organic matter available.

lolainthecola, I am not real familiar with your growing conditions all I can suggest is what I remember seeing when I was in your area on business trips. You could get a lot of color going with foliage I saw a plant called....Stromanthe sanguinea 'Tricolor' Gingers flower and they are fragrant crotons oyster plant Flowers that I remember seeing was Hibiscus roses