'Sharp sand' has a coarser texture than 'soft' sand. Soft sand is quite fine grained and smooth and is used for cementing bricks together. Sharp or coarse sand has larger grains in it and is used for making concrete.
The sand on the beach at the seaside is normally of a fine texture whilst the sand at the side of a large, inland lake is normally 'sharper'.
I don't know what terms the building trade in Arizona would use, Tugbrethil.

This is the definition I found by googling:

Sharp sand, also known as builders' sand, refers to sand that has a gritty texture. This type of sand is often mixed with concrete for a number of different construction applications. Sharp sand can also be added to soil in order to create potting soil or to loosen clay soil. In most instances, this type of sand is made from ground quartz rocks.

sharp sand has never been weather it looks like a broken stone under a micro scope and sopt sand has been warn down bye weathering and looks like smooth pebbles under a microscope .when they build them sand sculptures they import the sand and people waonder why . its because sharp sand has a key into itself wear as soft sand runs past itself much easier and you cant pile it so high .hence getting as moon grower sais sand imported for sand sculptures on beeches .

Well, I knew that it felt gritty, and that the grains were angular, but the sand and gravel companies kept asking for something like "The grains are --- microns in diameter, and the mineral composition is about --% ------, and --% --------." Ground from quartz rocks sounds rare and expensive to me--there must be some kind of sifted mine spoil available in Europe, but not here. Unfortunately, the sand imported for sand sculptures on the beaches here in the States contains clay to hold it together, as does "play sand". The closest I've found to sharp sand is little 1 quart bags of "horticultural sand", for 5 bucks each! Not a lot of help when I'm trying to condition a flowerbed. Of course, the companies had never heard of horticultural sand either! I still could use some more specific info, but thank you for helping, friends! : )

Not mine spoil in Europe, T, but natural sand and gravel deposits. After the last ice age, 10,000 years ago, the water from the melting glaciers left huge deposits of ground up rock all over the land. This is now quarried and just riddled into required sizes. Did this ice age not affect Arizona?
It would cost a fortune to actually crush the rock down to the size needed for sand. Our quarry men would look at us blankly if we asked for the description you give above.

well if its to condition your land cant you get ground up vulcanic rock as thats sharp and not very heavy either and would do the same job .

Nature's open pit! I forgot!
We're too far south for the Ice Age, though, Bulbaholic. It only dropped a good-sized glacier on our tallest mountain. The moraine deposit is in a National Park, and so not mined. Probably not the right stuff anyway (see below).
NP, we do have stuff called Lava Sand--from the vicinity of the mountain mentioned above--but the minerals it is composed of decay rapidly into clay in our temperatures. It helps for 2-3 years, then it makes things worse. We find it a more useful additive to potting compost, to increase the weight, and improve water retention.
Most of the sand we use around here comes from the bed of the Salt River, which is dry 59 months out of 60. It tends to be more rounded than glacial sand is likely to be, but still sharper than beach or dune sand. My main problem is that I don't know what particle size range to ask for to get what I need. I have had some success wet sifting play sand through window screen, but that's just make work. I still can't believe that no one in the gravel industry here in Arizona knows what Sharp sand is!

me either tugbrethil but if you dont come across it then why would you know or perhaps you have another name for it in the building trade ?

That's one thing I'm hoping for, that there's another name for it here, but so far no one is able to translate. As the Australian native said to Captain Cook, "Kangaroo?" (loosely translated, "Say what?")

or saying in a chinese reseraunt your chicken is rubbery and them thanking you lol .as it goes if you can build an abode out of mud or cow poo i think especialy from my sculpting that you could use soft sand to build a house easily if thats all you had.i would look for a good builders merchants in your neck of the woods and ask what they actualy use .

Who knows why, NP, but I didn't think about that! I'll also have to look at it to see if that's what I want. Most of what I have seen at construction sites has been finer than what I saw on television ("Victory Garden", to be specific) but still a little coarser than play sand. Will post results when I have them, if only to help my fellow Yanks!

good thinking tug its not to do with how fine it is so much its to do with how jagged each little piece is .

I am doing a basic gardening course and we were advised to use sharp sand. One chap asked if that was builders sand and the lecturer said no, it was sharp sand. I said I got mine from the builders merchant (to make a mixture for growing carrots) . The lecturer said that was not the correct stuff, buy it from a Garden Centre. I think if you visit your horticulture store again, the description of grain sizes and mineral composition might be on the bag of very expensive stuff. You can tell the builders merchant what you need and he will tell you whether he can source it for you and what price it will command.

What about trying sports ground suppliers.They use sharp sand to condition the grass.

i tell you what scotsgran thats just a way of getting you spending more money .definatly go get sharp sand from a bulders .

Agreed, Noseypotter. Garden center sharp sand might be a little bit sharper than concreting sand from the builders merchants but if you want more than a bucket full it is not wirth spending the extra money.

its just robbery. i remember before furniture used to have to have an anti fire spray put on them . if you baught aquarian filter wool it was just man made what lookls like cotton wool . used to cost about £4 for enough to clean one and a half power filter tubs. now if you went into a shop wear they sold synthetic cotton wool for stuffing furniture,cushions or stuffed toy it was £2.50 for a large well filled bin bag of the same stuff . you must read between the lines .

No such luck on the label, Scotsgran. It says on the front "Horticultural Sand", and on the back it details all the other products that company sells. Sometimes I wonder about label designers! When I get more time, I will try to contact the company to see if I can find out more. I'm not too hopeful, though--in similar situations in the past, other companies' experts that had originated the product line had retired just last year, and no one currently working for them knew any more than to buy product #--- from so-and-so. It seems that there's serious attrition among the old "garden geezers" that originally built the horticultural industry, and their descendants are MBA's, lawyers, and office drones.

cant you get a microscope or borrow one you will see the differance easy .

I had a look at horticultural sand at Suntrap. It is full of useless info as you say eg which other products the company can supply but it did say 5mm. I presume that is the grain size. Could you see a sample of the sharp sand the builders merchant is offering and compare it to what is in the store. I think if it had significant amounts of any chemical or mineral in it, it would say so on the bag, otherwise you could be upsetting the balance in your garden. In UK we have an NPK measurement on other garden additives, like bonemeal or fish blood and bone but there was none on the horticultural sand I looked at.

Scotsgran, I'm looking at my metric ruler, and 5 mm looks more like pea gravel than sand. Maybe that was supposed to be .5 mm? Still haven;t had time to check with the manufacturer. Maybe Monday...?

5mm is very large for 'sand'. I use 6mm grit for my composts because it is the smallest that can get from local quarries, but would prefer to use 4mm. By ratio, I would suggest that sharp/coarse sand would be up to 1mm.

I have just examined our bags of sharp sand and our builders sand both bought from B&Q DIY store. They are quite different. I needed a lot of sharp sand for growing carrots and that is why we bought it. We use the builders sand for concreting.

5mm is huge compared to like bulb sais about 1mm and id say thats generous.sharp and soft sand dont realy look much different to the naked eye or shouldnt just slightly grittier maybe.

I'm pretty nearsighted, so I can see the points on the horticultural sand, and feel them, too. Most of the builder's sand I've seen close up is pretty variable as to pointiness and particle size. I would have expected the construction industry to have forced a little more standardization in their sources. I should know better: major corporations don't even listen to their biggest customers!

I hope you get it sorted soon soyou can get onwith revamping your garden.

me to lol

I found all of the info below in the RHS website at http://mygarden.rhs.org.uk/forums/p/20671/32516.aspx
In case you have difficulty finding it I have copied extracts of the answers to the Q ---- Sharp sand is sharp sand is sharp sand? Or is it? ----
1) I've bought cheapish bags of sharp sand from a DIY place before and luckily it came in clear bags, so I could see it was more like fine grit (which is what you want) and not ordinary sand. ------
2) Bigger the grain the better for gardeners as far as drainage matters. ------
3) Can I throw a bit of caution into this discussion. I've used a far bit of sharp sand in my days as a Landscaper and it's very variable stuff. Builders sharp sand is graded, but batches vary considerably even in the same delivery. The thing to watch for is not just grain size but chemical content - sharp sand can contain a lot of salt even if its been washed. Don't forget that if it is washed (and I've handled some pretty dirty stuff in my time that was supposed to be washed) it will be washed for building purposes not horticultural. The likleyhood is that it would be OK but if the sand affects your plants you won't have any comeback. Also if you want to add lime to your soil why not get a load of mushroom compost, it already has a high lime content and bulky organic matter will open up your soil a treat ! -------
4) Digging sand into serious clay soil is a poor way to deal with more than a few square metres. Clay so dominates the nature of a soil that you have to add heroic amount to overcome the influence of clay - more than 50:50 by volume in most cases, and too little gives the worst of both sandy and clay soil - again test on a small area first if you are set on this unwise course. Better to add oodles of organic matter - composted bark seems especially effective.

I hope this is helpful.No one thought to ask why you wanted to buy in bulk.

Well, I just need a few bags to do a new flowerbed, and I was tired of making do with the play sand from the local Home Depot. I wanted to use the real thing, this time. It looks like I dove into deeper water than I realized! : D The good news is that a local nursery might be getting the right stuff in the near future--assuming they can find a supplier!

Tug use this link to ask the gardening programme about the sharp sand. It seems to give helpful advice via a Q & A facility of great interest to many of us. We will be as interested as yourself to know if there is a different name for the product you seek or if there is an alternative recommendation on how to condition your soil. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/victorygarden/ask/questions.html

Thank you, Scotsgran! I have a question in to them just now. Now to see if they answer.