[Mrs. Robinson]

Originally Posted by CFrance

This is what we used to do at Lake Michigan, where everything is built on sand. The water drains right through into the sand and nothing is retained, so more frequent watering for shorter periods is the way to go. I plan to try this, because our lawn looks like the Sahara Desert with two days per week.

This is exactly why homeowners should be doing things to enrich the "sand" that we call soil.
Add peat moss, Black Kow and/or compost; put down layers of newspaper with mulch on top.
Over time, the mulch and newspaper disintegrates and actually helps to become soil.
These things are what will help retain moisture in planted areas.

Anyone who has stones as opposed to some type of mulch, isn't doing anything to benefit the sand or anything planted in it.
Stones actually do more harm than anything good and fertilizer over the stones doesn't do much good in this case either.