Forgive me in advance. I'm pretty skilled in the vegetable garden, but I'm entering an area now where I'm a total novice.

I'm moving to North Padre Island (Corpus Christi area) Texas in January, and the small backyard at the house has extremely sandy soil. I am not interested in a lawn of any type (now the "lawn" looks like a balding man's head - wisps of grass here and there with skin showing through).

What I really want is to have a stone-pebbles and/or mulch base and on that have my "yard". I'd like raised beds and planter boxes, a path winding through it, an above ground water feature (glorified bird bath), and a little meditation corner. Does that make sense?

I just don't want to want to waste what precious little water we have here in this area trying to keep a lawn alive in this type of soil. I also feel pretty sure it would cost a small fortune to amend this soil to bring it up to a standard acceptable for the kind of gardenign I want to do -(vegetables, herbs, and a floral bee garden).

I know what to do in every area but creating that foundation. My first thought was to level the ground and put down heavy duty landscape fabric - then the mulch and rocks over that, but I've read a lot of posts here saying don't do that.

Here is where I'm stuck. If I don't do that - how should proceed?

Thanks in advance for any advice - I truly appreciate it.