Questions about desert boards

[Kane]

Hey everyone,

First of all: Best of wishes for 2017!
Second, I'm in need of some help:
I intend to make a couple of battle tables set in the desert. One is a partial airfield (it's 28mm, so sadly can't find the whole bloody thing on a 6x4' board.  ). LRDG, yes.

What I want to know is which kind of sand would be best suited for such tables. I have a fair amount of old GW sand (with the slightly larger chunks in it), but I think the grain is too thick, especially looking at desert pictures. Of course I myself keep on collecting information, but I doesn't hurt to ask the creative minds over here, right?  

Second, I've been searching the internet for some high quality palm trees and I've come accross the following:
http://www.dreamsstudio.com/baueda/rtp_trees.html
http://www.ebobminiatures.com/recon28/trees.htm
https://www.themodeltreeshop.co.uk/date-palm-tree-click-picture-to-see-prices-and-options-p53.html

Does any of you use these and if so: what is your experience/advice/opinion? If you have yet another brand, you can comment on that one as well.

If you have other pieces of advice regarding the making of a WW II desert battle table, I'd love to hear them!

Thanks alot for the help!

[ancientsociety]

I would recommend checking your local hardware store for "premium" play sand. This is sand for kids sandboxes that has been sifted at the quarry to remove larger granules and stones.

You should also check ebay for toy or cake decoration palm tree lots from China. You can often get several different heights and styles shipped for about $25

[Schogun]

Look for Hermit Crab Sand at your local pet stores. It's fine enough for my 10mm desert table.

[Captain Blood]

I don't know the answers to your questions, but i will shortly be taking on the same sort of project, so replies to your thread will be very useful 

EBob is entirely and totally out of stock of his palm trees, so that's not much use.

I've just bought a few boxes of the Pegasus plastic palm tree kits, various denominations. I think they'll paint up well and they seem relatively readily available and relatively inexpensive, working out to around 3.00 GBP for a 100mm tall palm tree...

What I do need to find now is some ground level palm type growth to use on and around the bases of the palms themselves... all suggestions gratefully received