Mike, Hey sounds like you have a great handle on both the 5-1-1 and gritty mixes! It took me a long time to find all the ingredients and figure out the fertilizer side of things, but once you do some reading of this thread and the previous eight threads it does make sense. Al was most generous with his time, both on and off-list, and answered many of my "newbie" questions. I'm sure your plants should respond much better using these soil mixes next season. My trees are showing huge root growth this season in the gritty mix. Granted, hunting down the ingredients, sifting fines, and mixing the soil it is a bit more work than just buying a bag of MG potting soil, but I have no doubt that in general plants grow better in the 5-1-1 and grit mixes with proper fertilization, watering, drainage and air movemnet through the root zone. The peat in the MG soil acts like a sponge and retains far too much water for far too long, preventing air from getting to the roots and keeping the roots soggy. I agree that typically the big box stores are not very helpful when it comes to finding the right ingredients for the soil mixes. Granted, a few list members have found the right size of pine bark, turface or even silica sand at a HD or Wal-Mart but typically in my area you have to go to local hardware stores, feed stores, etc. to find the ingredients. In my experience, if you go to HD or Lowe's and ask for turface no one has any idea what you are talking about. Sounds like you've already found some great sources for your materials! Good luck next season and be sure to keep us posted on how your plants do in the new mixes. Thanks Dave

Lou, I agree about the sharp sand but I'm not going to be a stickler about it...yet. I'm just having a hard time arguing with the OP's results, and he used river sand. I would offer it as an alternative and suggest the pros and cons, as you did, but with these results I am backing off on my former insistence on sharp sand. For example what if sharp sand packed down on top of the grass and slowed the regrowth of the bermuda? Round sand won't do that and could actually be the reason why this method works. Like I said in my first reply to this, I've seen bermuda killed by applying this much sand. Oh, and the OP did core aerate as part of his project. I think I agree with the importance of that. I may be changing several of my opinions based on this topic. For example 1. Rounded (river) sand may not be as bad as we have been thinking. 2. Core aeration may not always be a complete and utter waste of time, energy, and money. 3. Smothering bermuda with sand may not kill it if you prepare it right and provide proper follow on care. I don't know if the OP accidentally stumbled on a method that works or he read it somewhere or what. But hey, it really did work. In all the years of reading this forum, this is the first time I've seen real solution to this frequently asked question. I think the ideas need to be captured and saved as a FAQ. I'm willing to write it up and give the OP full credit. Unfortunately iVillage doesn't want pictures in their FAQs. Too bad because I would not have believed it if I had not seen the pix. So I have something else in mind besides a FAQ here.

Please allow me to explain some facts about the different types of sand. As a contractor and someone who has worked in a concrete plant you better know what type of snd you need for the job you are doing. With that said lets began. Sand is either dug up in a quarry or dredged from a pond, lake or a sand quarry that they hit a spring in and filled with water. All commercial sand is washed so it can be graded for size and type. You have to go out and dig up your own if you want to get unwashed sand ( which is not recommended for landscaping ) to be used as fill sand or what we call sandbox sand. First thing to fall out of the washer is mason sand. Next is concrete sand followed by fill sand which contains some clay. Next is gravel base and is made-up of lots of clay and small gravel.This is what you typically find on ball diamonds and clay tennis courts or as a base for a gravel driveway or path through your garden. It can be packed down so hard you would think it was concrete with a colored dye in it untill it rains. Dogs, cats, kids and husbands get in quite a bit of trouble when it rains because of this stuff. Next is pea gravel. This can be used to cover the gravel base or partly fill holes like lateral lines where you need good drainage or placed under downspouts to keep the water from making a canyon of you lawn and it gives it a decorative look. Just remember to use something to keep the gravel in place or your mower becomes a machine gun when you mow around It. A lot of people use it in flower beds and around the base of trees too for decorative look. Rock gardens look neat and pea gravel mixed with river rock works well for this. Next comes river rock. Used as I just mentioned in place of the pea gravel ecept not on lateral lines or sewer pipes or any other underground lines and pipes. Although it does work well for drip irrigation or soaker hose. Then the last is river stone. Good for decorative landscaping and filling in wash outs or anywhere you need the water not to erode the ground beneath them.

A word of caution about water retention crystals. If you live in an area that is sometimes deluged with way too much rain (like Chicago), you cannot remove those crystals from the soil and you might be sorry you used them. That's what keeps me from using them anywhere but containers. I have to let the lawn go brown. It will come back when we get rain. Other plants won't, so I focus on them. I constructed several screens for my young hydrangeas this week. They were wilting horribly from the 1-2 hours of sun they get. In cooler temps, they do fine, but when it gets into the mid-90s, a plant loses more fluids through transpiration than it can possibly take in and transport to its tissues. That's why plants wilt even when the soil is cool and moist under the mulch. So if anything, I give them a good misting when they're heat stressed. That perks them up a little, but the screens seem to really be helping the young hydrangeas. The screens look stupid, but the plants appreciate them. I water the beds at night, directly at the root level. Night temperatures and darkness enable them to begin taking up nutrients again. It seems to take forever to manually water every individual plant, but I keep telling myself this will pass once we get a bit of rain and the temps drop to normal levels.