Okay Gary, I'm glad you wrote in months in advance to get your plan checked over. NEVER TILL to prepare for turf. Yes, I realize every single book ever written about preparing soil for turf has you tilling it. I used to work for a "pre-landscaper," the guy who prepared the surface for the landscapers on new construction. Actually his title was "finish grader." Tillers are never used. I never knew why until I spent a few years reading here at GardenWeb. The tool used to prepare the soil and make it drain properly is a box blade on the back of a real tractor (large back wheel and small front wheel). If you hire a real landscaper, or a finish grader, your entire yard can be done in a morning (unless you have a sprinkler, lots of trees, fences, decks, or patios). All the work is done at the surface and no deeper than an inch. Your underlying soil structure is important to conserve and tilling turns it to an uneven powder. When that uneven powder settles, it settles unevenly. After a few years, the result of a tilled preparation is a rolling surface at best and usually more like moguls that need to be refilled with sand or soil to even things out. The finish grader will know if you need more soil (you don't) and will grade the surface so that rain drains away from all buildings and away from the property. You cannot do that by hand. You also cannot rent a tractor and do it yourself unless you've been doing it for 5 or 10 years. To assume it is compacted is a mistake. It might be very hard and not very absorbent but compaction is more than that. You can improve the absorbency with a soaker hose set on trickle. Try it. It's free. Set the faucet to a trickle at the faucet and leave the soaker hose running 24/7 for up to three weeks. You'll be startled at how soft your soil becomes. The reason is the return of soil fungi that have died out. The boringly slow soaker provides just the right moisture without shutting off the air for them to come back to life. At the end of three weeks (you'll have to do normal watering still) your soil will be like a sponge. It will be very soft when wet, very hard when completely dry, and it will absorb water quickly when it rains or you irrigate. That is what you're looking for. You don't need to till or add any amendments to achieve that. If I only was allowed to add one thing to ANY soil, it would be a surface application of ORDINARY corn meal (from a feed store) or alfalfa pellets at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Here's a plan for this summer. At the end of summer you might decide you don't need to renovate. 1. Deep water but no more than once a week in the heat of the summer. If your first few waterings have a lot of runoff, stop watering and let the moisture settle in. Then come back before the day if through to finish. I water for up to 3 hours per zone, once a week, and my zones overlap by 50%. Then let the soil dry out completely. If your grass wilts before a week is up, water again but for longer this time and try to go a full week. The deep watering develops deep roots that really build your soil's health. The long delay between waterings allows the surface of the soil to dry out and prevents weed seeds from sprouting. 2. Reset your mower to mow at the highest setting and don't bag your clippings. Tall grass does not grow faster than short grass. Tall grass is needed to develop the deep roots because short grass cannot produce enough sugar to grow really deep roots. Tall grass also shades the soil so the soil remains cooler during the days and loses less moisture to evaporation. Tall grass will also keep dandelions and many other tap rooted weeds out. Clovers and spreading plants will still grow, so do what you like for that. I like to pull them by hand. If I have to suggest spraying with something, I start with vinegar on a hot day. If you have to use a chemical Weed-B-Gone spray on each weed is much better than broadcasting dry weed killer everywhere. If you do these first two things, you should really never have serious weed problems. Insects and diseases are different, so keep an eye out for them. 3. Fertilize with your favorite fertilizer on a regular schedule. I like organic fertilizer, but I'm not sure it makes any difference to the weeds. Insects don't seem to be a problem anymore with all the toads, birds, and lizards that have returned to my lawn since I stopped using chemicals.

My first garden was created 5 years ago...we took off the sod, amended with compost, tilled and planted and mulched. It was a nightmare. I probably needed 60 times more compost, and never could have afforded it. The following two years I hated working in the garden because it was such hard work with the clay and many plants didn't thrive. I replanted areas many times and each time I would add more compost/mulch, whatever I could get my hands on. I also added a soil conditioner that was very expensive but works like gypsum...breaks down clay. (Who knows, maybe it WAS gypsum with a bigger price tag.) It's 6 years later now and I have to tell you that the garden is just a delight to work in now. I plan to spread gypsum a couple of times each year and continue mulching the beds, but I'm sure I'll never have to do all that double-digging like I did before....just keep on piling on the stuff like everyone wrote above, and before you know it, your beds will be as you need them to be. I also highly recommend that you search out plants that LIKE clay, so that your plantings will be successful. I spent many, many dollars buying plants that needed more drainage than I had and would die...and I wondered why. Some of those plants might do ok for me now in the same garden, but I think it's important to plant things that actually LIKE the ground that they are in today. Good Luck!

When you use a soil that's so water-retentive you can't water correctly (so you're flushing the soil of accumulating salts when you water) w/o the plant suffering from extended periods of soil saturation, odds are you're going to be leaving a LOT of your plant's potential lying on the table unrealized. Also, if you can't water correctly, making sure your plants are getting what they need, nutritionally, when they need it, is little more than a dream ...... especially if you're depending on soil amendments or the soil proper as a source of nutrients. In the end, focusing on your soil's structure (its ability to consistently provide your plants with a favorable ratio of air and moisture) and ability to maintain that structure is far more important than the soil's ability to feed the plant. With the right fertilizer and a soil you can water correctly, it takes less than 5 minutes to learn how to put in place a nutritional supplementation program that gives you complete control over what plants get, how much, and when they get it. It just doesn't make good sense to use a soil you have to compete with for control over your plants' vitality. Al

A pH of 6.2 to 6.3 should be fine for the things you're interested in planting. Adjusting pH downward by using sulfur is not necessary and is more difficult to achieve then it seems. As for "sheet mulching" producing a "nice clean area", if you think that spreading mulch will prevent weed germination or the sprouting of root pieces left behind, it really won't do this. A better approach would be to leave the bed alone until germination and sprouting have taken place. Then uproot the weeds. If you have the patience, repeat the process a second time. HollyTone is a good product, but does not provide much of anything in the way of organic matter. No idea where you live, but many suppliers of landscaping materials sell mixtures of compost and partially decomposed bark under such names as NutriMulch and others. This is an excellent product for incorporating into a new bed that increases water holding capacity and aeration. If not available, partially decomposed bark used by itself will provide similar benefits. The plants you mention are not gross feeders, but if any show signs of nutritional lack, then's the time to use small amounts of HollyTone. I'd also be cautious about using large-growing hostas and astilbes. These can be rampant growers that have the potential to crowd out other things.