No offense to hoovb, but yeah, Jean, I was waiting for someone to say something. It's a lot of work, trying to clean up all the "dirt" around here. It's an overwhelming task. It's like steppin' into "uncomposted manure", at times... Speaking of, Grandma, who would be 102 today, said that when she was a young girl, she'd go out and squish her bare toes on a cold morning in warm cow paddies. She also told me that when she was a child, her grandma told her that the Devil had laid her out on a stump, and the sun had hatched her. I used to think she was for real. Turns out, I started learning about biology, and that it was impossible for a mammal, like we are, to be hatched from an egg. And then I learned about the platypus. M

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.

Well, this is not a fun soil. And it's not going to be a quick fix, either, because this soil, such as it is, is not going to reward you quickly. Amendments are never organic and I can't recommend them that way for measured additions. Plus, in the below I want to overwhelm the soil space with a burst of sulfates to kick out the magnesium ions in solution repeatedly, which I cannot do without a water-soluble molecule...which, by definition, isn't going to be bound to a carbon backbone. ME 3.7: Sand. No matter how you slice this, it's sand. Possibly small boulders. :-) OM 4%: Good. And combined with the ME, that worries me. It can't go very high because the oxygen penetration is excellent, leading to fast decay of organics. So keep pouring on the organics and live with it. Sulfur 20: Fine, with tons of margin to do what I have planned here. Phosphorus 600+: Fine, but never use a starter fertilizer or a high-P organic like Milorganite if you can avoid it. You don't really need it. Calcium 59%: A little low. I'd very much like to push this up and try to abolish some of the... Magnesium 30%: Extremely high, which is kicking your pH up to near-neutral. It's actually high enough to make a sandy soil slightly tight and hard to work. We can get rid of some of this using gypsum, which you can get through most landscape stores. With a low ME, you won't need much. Recommendations below. Potassium 2.3%: Low, and you don't have much in the soil reserves. We use potassium sulfate to kick this up and you can order that at the same time you order the gypsum. Sodium 2.6%: Hellishly high. Do you have a water softener and water the lawn with softened water? If so, see if you can bypass and use the hard water to water it instead; it's better for the soil. If not, this may be natural--and the other reason I want the gypsum in the amounts I've called for. Sodium is useless to plants (and approaching toxic at these levels to some--grasses are more tolerant, but will wilt much faster when dry). Calcium sulfate (gypsum) will undergo salt metathesis to sodium sulfate and wash out, leaving the calcium (useful) behind and dumping the (highly alkaline and useless) sodium. Minor Elements: Boron <0.2: Off the charts low and deficient. But if you object to non-organics you're probably going to go bananas at the concept of applying a borate in a carrier (but you can use an organic feeding as a carrier if you want). However, boron is used for cell differentiation, photosynthesis, and a ton of other things. Sandy soils are often short of it. Let me know, there's still space in the schedule to fill it in. Most of the rest of the minors look good, although I do wonder where the aluminum came from. That place could almost be a bauxite mine... Recommendations: September: Apply 10 pounds per thousand square feet of gypsum (calcium sulfate). I realize you're in NH; gypsum isn't sensitive to ground freeze and isn't a water pollutant. October 1 or so, two weeks after the gypsum (it can go at the same time if you like, they don't interact, but I prefer to separate them to give the soil solution time to adjust): Apply 2 pounds per thousand square feet of potassium sulfate. April/May (after ground unfreeze): Apply another 10 pounds per thousand of gypsum. May 15: Apply 2 pounds per thousand square feet of potassium sulfate. September 1: Apply 2 pounds per thousand square feet of potassium sulfate.

Send off soil for a good soil test (I use and will read Logan Labs tests here). The lawn I started with was atop soil that had been corn field since my grandfather could remember. Tilled, fertilized chemically, beaten apart, you name it. My first test showed a pH around 4.5. Seriously. The soil was in near complete collapse. It was no wonder everything struggled. But I did have enough manganese (and still do) to open a mine. It did take time, but with judicious amendments, everything now flourishes. I never aerated (you really don't have to and it's a complete waste of your time and effort, comparatively speaking). I've even tried to overload the soil with organics one year, to the tune of 1,300 pounds per thousand square feet, and couldn't do it. But that was after re-stabilizing everything and re-establishing a healthy soil biology. Start with the soil test. Always mulch mow whatever grass you have, and any leaves and other organic materials you can get. Feed organically. And go from there.