Sands from coarse to superfine

I’ve been thinking about sand for a while now. At first I was thinking about quantities of sand (and organic matter); I’ve expanded that to also look at sand particle sizes.

After studying hundreds of different sands used as turfgrass rootzone and topdressing material, these five cover the range of what I’ve seen used.

I first plotted the particle size distribution for these sands. Two of them—the ones I’ve called “coarse” and “normal”—meet the USGA recommendation for particle size. Three of them do not.

I also plotted these five sands as bar charts for each of the sizes recommended by the USGA.

If you have seen coarser or finer sands than these used as putting green green rootzone material, please let me know.