I bought a bag of "top soil" from one of the big box stores and once it dried out, it looked like it was mostly finely shredded wood.

If you can get enough compost, that will probably be just as good, if not better.

Where are you that you have sandy soil? I've heard of sandy soil in Utah, but never seen it. I thought most of the soil here was the heavy clay like I have.

I live in Washington Terrace. I'll do what you suggested and use compost. Thanks.

bpgreen- the soils along the Wasatch Front vary widely. It all depends on where you are at elevation wise and in relation to the canyons. As you're probably aware, the Great Salt Lake is the remnant of the ancient Lake Bonneville (more like an inland sea) that covered much of Utah, Idaho and Nevada.

My folks live in Sandy (there's a soil hint, lol!) near a canyon so their soils are sandy with lots and lots of rock. I'm working on a landscape plan for a client currently and the client's home is situated literally on an ancient sandbar of Lake Bonneville so they have soil that is almost straight sand with zero organic matter. I live down by the Jordan River. Only the smallest particles of clay and silt settled down in this area since it was the bottom of the sea. Along the west bench of Salt Lake, you'll see a lot of similar soils as you will on the East Bench. The closer you are to the mountains, the more large rocks you'd have. As you get closer and closer to the center of the valley, the size and frequency of the rock gets progressively less.

Sorry to pontificate. I just think it's rather interesting and since I've had the chance to work in a lot of different yards around the valley, the radical change in soil types is really interesting to me.

As to the original question- the stuff you get in bags at HD or Lowes is crap. Add organic matter or use a truck (if you have access to one) and go buy a yard of good stuff from a local supplier.

bindersbee, interesting information about the different soil types.

Thanks for the info on the soil types. I had heard that there were areas of sandy soil (and somehow never put 2 and 2 together on the name of the town). Your explanation makes a lot of sense.

I need top soil. live in lowere edegmont of Provo, not up on the bench nor in the river bottoms.
My soil is clay, that changes to adobe if during the summer I wanted to make brick.
I need top soil, but don't know where to get it.
They are several suppliers.
People have told me to avoid, this one or that one: full of rocks, weed seed; some mixed with manure and has lots of salts.
So I've heard of ones to Not get it from but no one can tell me who to get it from.
I heard that there is a supplier in Springvilled that has good top soil. Any idea how to find top soil that is high-quality & not full of weed seeds, salts, and has a good pH and alkalinity?

I really subscribe to the idea of using compost mixed with your native soil. I also use compost as a top dressing to suppress weeds. It works well for a year or so, if you put it on thick enough, but then you need to reapply to keep providing a barrier. It works its way into the soil over time, especially if in a flowerbed where you do a bit of digging and transplanting each year.

Clay is pretty good for nutrient content, as far as I understand, but just bad in terms of density and holding water too long. But if you break it up with compost, you keep the nutrients and make it better draining.

Most "topsoil" sold in Utah is really just screened dirt dug when excavating for basements. It's not really topsoil. Utah doesn't really have any native topsoil of significant worth, since we're so dry and don't have things like forest leaf little to build up topsoil over the years.

I think WoodStuff in Springville has good compost, but it's a bit expensive. Tucker Lawncare in Lindon has a good price on compost, and I've found it to be pretty good in terms of not bringing new weeds into my yard. I did think they shorted me a little on the load size last time, but I called and they came back and gave me a lot more than they needed to. So, in the end, I like them.