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.

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.

It is impossible to change clay soil to sandy soil. Your soil composition is the result of millions of years of geologic effects of earthquakes, glacial movement, oceans coming and going, etc. More recently, the bulldozers that excavated the lot that your home is built on may have had a significant effect on your soil, but even that was probably minimal. If you try to add sand to your clay soil, I'm afraid you'll end up with something very close to concrete. The best way to improve the drainage of your soil is to incorporate organic material such as compost, shredded leaves, wood chips, peat, manure, etc. these will all increase the ability of water and air and nutrients to flow through the soil, which increases the availability of these items to the plant roots. Unfortunately, these additions need to be made repeatedly since the micro-organisms in the soil break the organic matter down, which is how it becomes available to the plants. Fortunately, nature cycles in such a way that organic matter is replaced yearly as fallen leaves each autumn. That is why the soil in deciduous forests is so rich, and why our ancestors cut down all the trees to grow crops. Unfortunately, they also cut down part of the very source of the rich soil. I hope that answers your question, though not in the way you hoped. Martha

Hmmmm, how can they have just a couple of weeks in hot weather? You have a really short hot dry spell? I like to add a supplemental water bottle to some of my hosta in containers. At first I bought a special "olla" from Arizona Pottery. Made of unglazed terra cotta, it slowly seeps water into the container directly to the roots. Here is a picture of a small one in a bowl of minis. I added the lid to keep debris and bugs out of it. Another option might be that stuff which you can add to the planting hole in moderation, the water crystals. That can be tricky though, if you use too much it looks like bad Jello. Goo. I've taken to making my own self watering bottles by unscrewing the lid of a 2 liter plastic bottle just a wee bit to let water drip out of it into the pots. Similarly, years ago I took the tall square cans which welding rods came in, drilled some tiny holes around the bottom edges, just a few holes mind you. And planted them in my raised bed garden. I previously laid multiple layers of newspaper, had tons of it available, and then put the bags of garden soil on top of that to plant my flowers. So, think about lining your planting hole with newspapers. But, I don't know if such efforts will be appropriate for ONLY a two week period, if things are fine the rest of the year. That seems like the watering bottle might work better. I don't think you can "wean" hosta off their need for watering. But consider that I've only grown them for at best 3 years. The experience of others may vary.