Brown rot is caused by a fungus, Monilinia fructicola. This one fungus single-handedly makes growing stone fruit an impossibility, or impracticality for many backyard growers. Unfortunately, brown rot is difficult to control even for commercial growers. Many strains of it are now resistant to common fungicides available to non-commercial growers making succeeding at peaches doubly difficult for hobbyists.

Understanding brown rot

To understand how to control brown rot we need to understand its basic life cycle. As we mentioned above brown rot is a fungus. It overwinters on stem cankers or on fruit mummies. In the spring when the trees flower the blossoms get infected with fungal spores and the young fruit gets infected. Sometimes you see symptoms of brown rot on the blossoms, but typically stone fruit trees flower so prolifically that you don’t really notice the blighted blossoms. Even with some brown rot infection in the blossoms the trees typically set an ample fruit crop.

The fungus then sits latent until your fruit starts to ripen. Green fruit is not particularly susceptible to brown rot. However, the young fruits can be infected from infected blossoms or mechanical damage from insects. While the fruit is green, you likely think that your crop is just fine as it shows no symptoms of rot. Then when the fruit gets close to ripening it suddenly all rots. At this point it is too late to save the fruit.

There is no curative treatment for brown rot, so it is essential to do your best to prevent infection.

Unfortunately, for homeowners wishing to produce organic or no spray fruit, there is also no organic solution to brown rot. Brown rot is what typically stands in the way of a backyard spray program being organic. Thus, you should carefully consider whether you are willing to commit to spraying fungicides many times a year before planting stone fruit trees. Even with an expensive fungicide program, it is entirely possible to have a complete loss of your fruit crop.

Sadly, stone fruits can be particularly disappointing and unrewarding to grow for many people.

If knowing this you still wish to attempt to grow peaches, plums or cherries, you should start your brown rot control program in the winter months. Go through your orchard and remove all the mummies both from the trees and the ground. Mummies are the shriveled fruits infected with brown rot. Then as you are pruning your tree remove all the brown rot cankers you can find.

Be sure to burn, bury, or otherwise dispose of the brown rot material. Don’t throw it on your compost heap! You should also remove any wild Prunus species trees around your property if at all possible. Plants like wild cherry trees will harbor and spread the fungus. Your goal should be to minimize the amount of inoculum available to infect your fruits come spring.

Then you will need to commit to a stringent fungicide spraying program.

They usually involve spraying just before your buds open, once they start to fade and you have small fruits. Then spray fungicide weekly starting a few weeks prior to when you expect the fruit to ripen. We recommend checking with your local university extension for an up to date brown rot spray program tailored to your specific location. It can also be particularly helpful if you do not know when to expect fruit to ripen in your area. Environments vary widely, and the appropriate spray program in Georgia might not be correct for New Hampshire. Plus, brown rot has proven itself adaptable enough to develop resistance to common fungicides in many areas.

If you do start to see infected fruit on your tree. Remove and destroy them immediately. Brown rot can spread rapidly on ripening fruit. This is particularly true if conditions are favorable (warm and wet), or the fruits are touching. It is also important to control insects such as plum curculio that cause damage to fruits. Any damage to fruit provides an entry to allow brown rot easy access to infect the fruit. Likewise, you should take care during harvest not to damage the fruit. Fruit should be stored in a cool environment to reduce rot spread in harvested fruit.

Please, please do NOT spray all in one fruit tree sprays on blossoms for brown rot control!

These sprays typically contain insecticides that are highly toxic to pollinators. They cannot be sprayed on your buds or blossoms without harming your bees. To achieve brown rot control you must spray your buds and open blooms with fungicides to get good brown rot control. Please do our struggling pollinators a favor and invest in a recommended fungicide and spray it by itself on your buds and blossoms.

In conclusion, if you are considering planting stone fruits, make sure you can commit to spraying your trees with a fungicide 3-12x a year. If you can’t we suggest you avoid disappointment and try planting a no/low spray fruit variety like the Asian persimmon. If you already have peach trees and are struggling to get fruit, we hope this helps you get your brown rot under control so that you can harvest fruit!

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The information provided is for general informational purposes only. All information on the site is provided in good faith, for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. We make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information on this Site. Accordingly, before taking any actions based upon such information, we encourage you to consult with the appropriate professionals. We do not provide any kind of professional advice. THE USE OR RELIANCE OF ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. View full disclaimer here.

The post Brown Rot: The Bane of Growing Stone Fruit first appeared on Snowdrop Farm.

So what is sooty mold, and more importantly, where does it come from?

Sooty mold is as its name implies, a fungus. It is a fungus that is growing on the surface of your plant, car, patio, and anything else underneath the infected tree. Unlike plant disease fungi, it is not directly feeding off of your plants. Sooty mold is growing on the honeydew secretions of insects.

In and of itself sooty mold typically will cause no real harm. Generally, the pest causing the sooty mold is of much more concern. However, in very heavily infested plants, it can reduce the plants ability to do photosynthesis resulting in stunted plant growth. Sooty mold covered leaves may also be more prone to dropping early. Plus, it can also make a really ugly mess of your patio. Fortunately, it can be washed off your car or patio with some scrubbing. Keep in mind though, that until you control the insects secreting the honeydew it is likely to quickly return.

Once you have removed the insect source of honeydew feeding the mold it will gradually disappear as it uses up its food source.

If you have resolved your pest problem, and the sooty mold is still present, do not despair. Your plant will be perfectly fine. There is nothing else that you need to do. Sooty mold may not completely disappear until the plant has shed and replaced its leaves the following spring. While impractical for larger plants, if you really can’t stand looking at the blackened leaves, you may be able to wash some of it off smaller plants.

What insects are responsible for causing sooty mold

Aphids and scale are the insects mainly responsible for creating the honeydew sooty mold loves to feed on. Both of them feed on sap from your plants and secrete honeydew as a waste product. This waste product is high in sugar, so it provides an excellent food source for the mold. While aphids and scale are the most common contributors, they are not the only pest that can lead to sooty mold.

The first step in solving the sooty mold problem is to identify what pest you have on your plants. Start by inspecting tender new growth of plants in the areas where sooty mold is present. It can also be helpful to do an internet search to learn what pests are common on the infected plant species.

Don’t forget to consider trees like crape myrtles that might be dripping honeydew on plants beneath them. Every plant with sooty mold might not be infected with a plant pest. Often a tree will drip onto adjacent plants. This will make it look like they have a problem when in reality they do not.

Different pests may require different methods of control. For example, aphids and scale must be treated and managed in very different ways. It is important to identify your pest accurately as treating for the wrong pest can not only not control the problem pest, but it can cause outbreaks of other pests compounding your problem.

Control the ants

One last thing we would like to note is that not only does sooty mold like to feed off of honeydew, but so do ants. If you have a plant that has sooty mold and a lot of ants present, you should take measures to control the ants. There is a good chance that the ants are farming the scale or aphids for the honeydew. In this scenario, the ants are protecting the pest from the beneficial insect predators that would normally keep them under control. Sometimes controlling the ants can go a long way towards resolving your sooty mold problems.

We hope this alleviates your despair over your plants turning black on you, and sets you on the path to a greener garden!

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The information provided is for general informational purposes only. All information on the site is provided in good faith, for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. We make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information on this Site. Accordingly, before taking any actions based upon such information, we encourage you to consult with the appropriate professionals. We do not provide any kind of professional advice. THE USE OR RELIANCE OF ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. View full disclaimer here.

The post How To Help Plants Blackened By Sooty Mold first appeared on Snowdrop Farm.

Oftentimes with plants that succumb to root rot, there are subtle symptoms such as yellow leaves that indicate there is a problem before the plant wilts down and dies. If these signs are noticed and heeded soon enough, the plant can likely be saved.

Unfortunately, with wilts that aren’t due to root rot, there is typically not a lot of advance notice. Nor is there much you can do for the plant once the symptoms have appeared. Wilts may kill the plant rapidly, or in the case of some woody plants, the plant may live for years before it dies. These wilts are often vectored by insects, however they can also persist in soil around infected plants and infect new plants via that route.

Insect vectored wilts are quite commonly seen.

One of the places you are likely to have experienced this type of wilt is in your vegetable garden with cucurbit family plants such as zucchini, cucumbers or melons. Most vegetable gardeners have had a beautiful lush zucchini plant just starting to set fruit that wilted down one day and then gradually faded away taking the promised fruit with it.

Wilts are not exclusive to cucumber plants. They affect a huge range of plants from annuals to perennials, to shrubs and trees. Some commonly affected plants include corn, beans, tomatoes, dahlias, strawberries, impatiens, mums and we could keep going on and on… Wilts also encompass some exotic diseases you might have heard about recently including Oak Wilt, Dutch Elm Disease and Vascular Streak Disease.

Insect vectored wilts are passed from plant to plant similarly to how ticks spread lime disease. An insect bites a plant that has the wilt bacteria or fungus, then it goes on to bite a plant that isn’t diseased depositing bacteria or fungal spores in the new plant. The damage done to the plant by the insect bite is inconsequential, and you may not ever even have seen the insect feeding on your plant. Unfortunately, once this occurs and your plant contracts the wilt organism, it is doomed to die.

The damage done by the introduction of bacteria or fungi is devastating for the plant.

Plants are in large part constructed of water conducting straws called xylem and phloem. Xylem and phloem are responsible for transporting water and nutrients throughout the plant. You can think of a plant stem like a bundle of straws. The wilt organism starts growing inside one of these straws and clogs it up or actually dissolves the plant tissue so water can no longer flow. It is not a big deal for the plant if one straw gets damaged, the plant has lots of xylem and phloem so that if one gets damaged others can compensate.

Unfortunately, as we all know, bacteria and fungi grow quickly. The wilt organisms rapidly spread from their initial location where the insect bit the plant, and before you know it, they have completely clogged all the xylem and phloem tubes. Sometimes an infected plant might look fine when the soil moisture levels are very high, and then rapidly die when the weather is hot and dry because it had too much damaged xylem to survive stress.

When the plant can no longer take up water from its roots, because too much xylem is damaged by the wilt organism, it will wilt as if under drought stress, because it is regardless of the water supplied. The aerial portions of the plant will rapidly desiccate and die, almost as if you had cut the plant off and thrown it on the ground. In the case of a zucchini plant, the plant typically dies within a few days of showing symptoms. In the case of some trees, they may grow slowly and lose more and more branches until they die.

As you can imagine, this is virtually impossible to treat once the symptoms have shown up.

So what can be done about wilts? You are left to try to prevent them and mitigate damage after they arrive. Prevention of insect vectored wilts is as you might imagine simply keeping insects with their dirty mouths off your plants. This is of course much easier said than done. However, pest control is the best way to limit wilts in your garden. It is important to try to limit exposure to pests known to commonly transmit wilts, so for example, don’t let striped cucumber beetles and flea beetles, which commonly vector wilts, run rampant in your garden.

If a wilted plant does show up in your garden the best thing you can do is to remove and destroy the affected plant immediately. If you have a squash plant in your garden die from wilt, remove it. Don’t let sit there and fade away in hopes that it will recover. It is not going to. Don’t give insects the opportunity to feed on that wilted plant and then feed on the nearby healthy plants. Therefore, don’t dump a wilt infected plant in your compost heap where it could still be fed on by insects or over winter pests.

Also, use gardening tools with care. Don’t use your pruners to trim off dead portions of an affected plant and then turn around and use the pruners on healthy plants. If you do this, you will be spreading the disease to other plants. You are creating an injury and placing the pathogen into the injury exactly as a insect vector does. Sterilize your prunes between cuts and plants using something like bleach or alcohol. Bleach is corrosive, so if you use bleach, be sure to thoroughly wash and oil your pruners before putting them away.

Do not plant highly susceptible plants where other plants have died from wilt.

As we mentioned some of these wilts can remain in the soil near where infected plants are/were. Common ones include generalists such as fusarium and verticillium wilts. Often these wilts will lurk in the soil waiting for an opportune time to attack a new host. This may occur for example in a poorly drained portion of the garden in an unusually hot wet summer.

As an example, verticillium wilt can remain in the soil for up to 25 years if it gets established. This generalist can affect hundreds of different plant species. Therefore, if your maple tree succumbed to what you suspect to be verticillium wilt, don’t replace it with another maple or you will likely get the same results. This is one of the reasons crop rotation is a recommend practice. Rotation between susceptible and non-susceptible plants giving pathogens time to die before you return to the susceptible crop.

Lastly, if you have wilts running rampant in your garden, it is likely a good indication that you do not have very healthy soil. In addition to planting resistant plants, you should work towards improving the health of your soil. As we mentioned last time in our discussion of root rot, overly wet, poorly aerated soils create the perfect environment for pathogens to flourish. These sorts of conditions also create weak plants that are more susceptible to disease problems. Sometimes something as simple as improving the drainage or texture of your soil can go a long way towards reducing problems and improving plant health.

We hope this give you some insight into the mysterious ‘sudden deaths’ of healthy thriving plants that we sometimes see.

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Please remember

The information provided is for general informational purposes only. All information on the site is provided in good faith, for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. We make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information on this Site. Accordingly, before taking any actions based upon such information, we encourage you to consult with the appropriate professionals. We do not provide any kind of professional advice. THE USE OR RELIANCE OF ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. View full disclaimer here.

The post Wilts: How Can My Healthy Plant Suddenly Be Dead? first appeared on Snowdrop Farm.

As passion flower growers, root rot is something we are always on watch for. Passion flowers are highly susceptible to root rot as are a variety of other plants such as lavender, rosemary, succulents, vinca, petunias, etc. You can bet that if the plant tag states that the plant requires good drainage that it is susceptible to root rot.

What is root rot and how to recognize it

Root rot is caused by a soil pathogen, usually one of several different fungi. It invades the roots of your plant and causes the roots to die and rot off. Left unchecked, it will continue to rot the roots until your plant has nothing left. This can happen very quickly in waterlogged soil as the overly wet soil creates the perfect environment for the fungus to rapidly grow. There are also wilts that can be transmitted by insects, however they are different and that is a topic for another day.

In this article, we are concerned with root rot caused by over watering. The main symptoms of this type of root rot are wilting of plants, yellow leaves and stunted growth. If your plant has yellow leaves and stunted growth, you may be able to save it if you can get the soil to dry out quickly. Unfortunately, plants that suddenly wilted down are less likely to recover.

If you pull one of these plants out of their pot, you will usually see soggy soil and plant roots that are brown and wet or mushy looking rather than being white and plump. If the top of the soil in the pot is covered with moss, that is also a good indication that your plant is likely suffering from excess moisture.

The symptoms of over watering and under watering look virtually identical

It is important that you look not only at the plant’s leaves, but you also need to check the soil when you notice a problem with one of your plants. Many a well-intentioned gardener has watered and then watered again a plant because it was wilted. However, had they checked the soil before watering they would have realized that water was the last thing the poor plant needed.

The yellowing of leaves or stunting of growth courtesy of root rot can also look remarkably similar to a nutrient deficiency, or perhaps a disease. Again, this often results in inappropriate treatment of the ailment. Resulting in a dead plant and a confused gardener.

Before you water your plants check the soil

It is always a good policy to only water your plants after checking the soil moisture level. Don’t water them on a schedule or because you think they need it. Don’t water them because they are wilted without checking the soil either. Remember too much water looks the same as too little water and is just as harmful.

It only adds a few seconds to your watering routine to feel the soil for moisture. If the soil is sufficiently moist refrain from watering. Taking a few extra seconds can make the difference between a plant that thrives and one that is dead.

Plants that are root rot prone (including Passifora) benefit from having their soil almost completely dry out before getting watered. What we mean by ‘almost dry out’ is that the soil has dried to the point that the plant is just about to start wilting, or has wilted just a tiny bit. You don’t want them to wilt badly as this can cause the plant to die back or even completely die. However, allowing them to get to the point of almost wilting prior to watering can be very helpful, particularly in cooler weather.

It can also be a good policy to have a dry down day for plants that are susceptible to root rot. This is something we often do with our container grown passion flowers. It is also something that is commonly incorporated into lawn watering schedules. You simply skip your normal watering which allows the plants to get drier than they normally would.

How do we do our dry down days?

We simply skip or delay watering for one session. In the heat of summer, a ‘dry down day’ in our greenhouse might actually only be a watering delay of a few hours as the plants should be watered as soon as they start to show signs of drought stress. What we typically do is avoid watering on any cloudy or rainy day. This prevents the foliage from sitting wet, and also keeps us from over-watering the plants. The plants are not using nearly as much water on a cloudy, wet day as they are on a hot sunny day.

In the winter when it is exceptionally easy to rot out plants, we are even more careful to incorporate time for the plants to dry out into our watering schedule. We might have days and days of cold rainy weather where the greenhouse hardly gets above 50 degrees. In these conditions, sometimes our dry down day might stretch into days. We might avoid watering for a week or more if the plants are not showing any signs of drought stress.

This can be useful not only for passion flowers, but any plant that is intolerant of poor drainage.

Many plants that require excellent drainage are also drought tolerant. They are much less likely to be bothered by a temporary water shortage than they are by consistently wet soil. Many of them may even appreciate short temporary droughts.

Your soil type matters!

Plants grown in poorly drained or heavy clay soil can be more susceptible to root rot than those grown in lighter/sandy soils. Additionally, plants are more susceptible in cool weather. Fall/winter/spring often combines excess rainfall with poor drainage and dormant plants. This creates the perfect environment for rot to take hold. Often, it is actually excess moisture and the resulting rot that causes plants to fail to overwinter, not the cold temperatures.

It is important to carefully situate root rot prone plants or those that are marginally hardy in your climate. You will have the best chance of getting them to survive in a well-drained location. If you cannot provide a well-drained location you are better off switching out the plant for something tolerant of having wet feet.

Plants can drown similarly to how you could drown in a pond

Just like the top of your plant is alive, the roots of your plant are alive. Living organisms need to breathe and your plant roots are no exception. The air spaces between soil particles are components of soil equally as important as the dirt you can see. When soil is saturated with water the air spaces get filled up with water molecules and your plant’s roots are no longer able to breathe and they suffocate. This provides the perfect environment for root rots to take over and finish killing the plant.

Plants vary in their ability to tolerate soil saturation. Some plants can die within a few hours of being submerged. Others, such as those you often see in riparian areas are able to tolerate occasional flooding. Still others are able to live in permanently saturated soil. Some plants even have special roots designed to stick out of the water to get oxygen allowing them to live in permanently saturated soil.

Container grown plants can be particularly susceptible to root rot

This is why it is recommended to gradually pot up plants to slightly larger pots rather than putting a tiny little plant in a huge pot. It is too easy to over water and rot a small plant in a large pot, and even moisture tolerant plants may succumb to rot. This is also why you do not use regular soil in pots, but rather potting mixes. The soil from your garden holds far too much water and will rot your plants.

You may now be wondering, why are container plants more susceptible? After all when you plant a plant in the ground, it is going into an infinitely larger ‘container’ than the pot on your patio. However, there is a distinct (albeit invisible) difference between the two. Soil is not an inert substance your plant is growing in. It is rather one massive living breathing ‘organism’. It is full of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, insects, worms, plant roots, etc. While disease organisms are present in garden soil, healthy soil is balanced, and all the beneficial organisms keep the pathogens in check.

The media in your flowerpots is not part of that living soil organism. It is ‘dead’.

So without all the beneficial organisms present, it is easy for the pathogens to proliferate and overcome your plants. This is why you compensate by potting up plants gradually. By only adding a small amount of new soil, the plant is able to set roots out into it to absorb the excess moisture before the pathogens can take over.

Now, keep in mind, it is not a given that the soil in your garden is healthy. It is very possible to create unhealthy soil where pathogens can overwhelm your plants similarly to how they do so in containers. A good example of this is where they fumigate fields to plant crops like strawberries.

Fumigation kills off all the microorganisms in the soil both good and bad making that field similar to the container on your patio. Its a great thing in the short term because you killed off all the pathogens, but it also sets the soil up to be the perfect environment for pathogens to proliferate making the soil very bad for plants in the long term. So be sure to treat your soil with care and respect as the valuable living organism it is.

How to prevent root rot

Avoid over watering. This is the main cause of root rot. Check soil moisture before watering. Take steps to protect container plants from excess water if they are outdoors and you are going to have a week of rain. Improve your drainage both in containers and also your garden if you can.

If you garden tends towards soggy soil and you wish to grow plants intolerant of wet feet, you may be able to help them by planting them on mounds or in raised beds. This way their crowns and some of their roots will be above your saturated soil during the winter months. Additionally, you may be able to cover a raised bed with plastic to shed the winter rains helping to keep the plant drier.

Lastly, we would recommend that you do yourself a favor and select plants that prefer your soil type and moisture level. Remember there are plants that thrive in every environment from the desert to the swamps. Selecting plants that want to live in the environment you have will allow your garden to flourish with minimal work on your part.

We hope that this guide on root rot will help your plants to thrive this coming season.

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Please remember

The information provided is for general informational purposes only. All information on the site is provided in good faith, for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. We make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information on this Site. Accordingly, before taking any actions based upon such information, we encourage you to consult with the appropriate professionals. We do not provide any kind of professional advice. THE USE OR RELIANCE OF ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. View full disclaimer here.

The post Root Rot Could Be What Is Killing Your Plants first appeared on Snowdrop Farm.

Nutrient levels, drainage, soil texture, and light exposure probably get more attention than soil pH. However, understanding soil pH and how it affects your plants is an important part of gardening. This is because different plants require different pH levels. It makes the difference between whether they thrive or die. Plus, if your pH is incorrect, you are wasting your money trying to fertilize that yellow plant. No amount of fertilizer will help as the nutrients are bound up and unavailable to the plant.

Container grown plants are particularly susceptible to pH caused problems. This is due to the decreased buffering and nutrient holding capacity of soilless mixes and the small container sizes as compared to the earth’s soil mass. You also irrigate your containers more frequently that you do the soil. This means that the pH of your irrigation water can have a larger impact on your container plants.

PH is simply the measure of how acidic or basic the soil is measured on a scale of 0-14.

A lower number is more acidic, a higher one is more alkaline. At very high or low pH, many nutrients form insoluble complexes that make nutrients unavailable for plants to take up. For this reason, most plants prefer to have a neutral to slightly acidic pH (between 6.0.7.5). This is the range in which most plant nutrients are most available.

The main symptom of pH problems are nutrient deficiency symptoms.

Having a nutrient deficiency despite fertilizing makes sense since pH affects the availability of nutrients. One of the most common nutrient deficiencies seen from pH problems is iron deficiency of acid loving plants such as blueberries and azaleas.

Nutrient deficiencies can be confusing. Iron deficiency looks similar to nitrogen deficiency. It is manifested by the yellowing of leaves. However, it is easy to tell apart from nitrogen deficiency by looking at the location of the yellow leaves. Nitrogen deficiency shows up on old leaves. Iron deficiency will show up on new leaves which will be yellow with green veins. In severe cases the leaves can even turn completely white.

Other pH caused nutrient deficiency symptoms such as brown, dead leaf edges or plant dieback are common. You may also see stunted growth or deformed leaves. These symptoms are also caused by various other pH induced nutrient deficiencies.

Soil pH can be affected by variables such as your location, irrigation water, and how the soil was previously managed.

Generalizations can be made about certain geographical areas, but this is not a good way to determine your soil amendment needs. For instance, if soil in a region is typically acidic, but it has been treated with lime for years and years, that particular patch of soil may actually be extremely alkaline. Therefore, you cannot know for sure what the pH of your garden is without getting a soil test. It is important to get a soil test done in your garden before you add any amendments so that you don’t accidentally make an existing problem worse.

Soil tests are easy, and inexpensive to do. They will tell you not only the pH of your soil, but also how much organic matter is present, and what other nutrients are excessive or deficient. If you tell the lab what crop you will be growing when you send the soil test, they will make fertilizer recommendations for you. That way you can fertilize your plants with what they actually need for healthy growth and production.

If your soil pH is not ideal, you can alter it.

Don’t be discouraged if your test results show excessively acidic or alkaline soil. If you commit to altering the pH level, it can be changed. This can be done by applying sulfur to lower it or lime to raise it. Adding amendments to change the soil pH should be done carefully and slowly over time with pH tests done periodically.

Soil pH changes slowly, so you will not see an immediate difference after applying either lime or sulfur. You do not want to over amend the soil. If you aren’t careful and make the mistake of driving your pH excessively high or low by improperly amending the soil, it can take decades to fix the problem.

It is easier to make the required frequent amendments to maintain an altered pH when planting annual crops where the soil can be amended and tilled yearly. It is more difficult to alter the pH of the soil in an already established planting, or to maintain the pH in a permanently planted bed. Thus, it is important to do soil testing, and proper bed preparation before planting a new bed of perennial plants.

It is good to keep in mind that any pH change you inflict on your soil will be temporary.

You will have to repeatedly apply lime or sulfur to maintain the pH you adjusted the soil to as the soil will wish to revert to its natural state (the pH of all the soil surrounding the beds you amended).

If you wish to grow certain fruits and vegetables, you will be stuck with adjusting pH to meet their needs. For example, if you wish to grow blueberries, you have to figure out how to get them very acidic soil or they will die. There is no blueberry that can grow in alkaline soil.

However, this is not the case with ornamentals. There is a wonderful range of ornamental plants that thrive in soils that range from extremely acidic to extremely alkaline.

Right plant, right place

It is our opinion that when planting ornamentals you should select plants suitable to the natural pH of your soil. Save yourself the headache, expense, and disappointment of fighting an uphill battle. If you are unsure what plants would thrive in your particular soil, a quick internet search will net you a list of options.

If your pH is on the acidic side, you should focus on acid loving plants. There are a good number of commonly grown landscape and edible plants that prefer to be grown in a more acidic soil. These include plants such as blueberries, azaleas, potatoes, hydrangeas, camellias, and many evergreens. There are of course dozens and dozens more plants that prefer acidic soil as well.

There are also many plants that prefer neutral to alkaline soil. These include butterfly bush, deutzia, forsythia, lilac, viburnum, and weigela. If you have highly alkaline soil we would highly recommend planting alkaline tolerant plants. It is not as easy to lower soil pH as it is to raise it as lime for raising pH is much more widely available.

Now with the exception of a few acid loving plants, you don’t have to go crazy worrying about pH.

Most plants will grow well within a range of pH levels. They don’t need the soil to be an exact pH to thrive. As we said before, most plants would prefer a slightly acidic to neutral pH between about 6 and 7.5. This is a good range to strive for. If your pH is in or near this range and your plants are doing well, you should make no changes.

Irrigation water can have a huge effect on the soil pH

Yes, that’s right, your water may be adversely affecting your plants. If you have highly acidic or alkaline irrigation water, and you irrigate frequently, over time the irrigation water can alter your soil pH. Irrigation water can alter the pH just as much as if you had added sulfur or lime to your soil. If your soil pH is where you want it, it is a good idea to make sure that your irrigation water is a similar pH. If it is not, you should use a different water source or adjust the water pH before irrigating with it. The last thing you want to be doing is watering your hard earned acidic soil with high pH irrigation water.

Container growing can be the solution to pH problems

We mentioned before that pH of container plants needed to be more carefully monitored because they had decreased buffering capacity as compared to the soil in your garden. This drawback can also be used to our advantage if we wish to grow plants that will not thrive in our regular soil. If for example you have very alkaline soil and wish to grow blueberry plants, you may be better off planting them in containers rather than trying to amend the soil.

A 15 or 20 gallon container can grow a large blueberry bush for a long time. The pH in the container can be easily maintained by using acidic fertilizer and/or acidic irrigation water allowing your plant to thrive. Whereas to plant in the ground, you would need to start soil pH adjustments at least a year prior to planting the bushes. Once the desired pH is obtained you would need to make frequent sulfur applications to attempt to combat the soil pH drifting back to alkaline in your garden.

Lastly, if you aren’t having any problems, don’t stress about soil pH. Zillions of plants in your neighborhood are growing just fine in unamended soil. However, checking your soil and water pH is something to consider if you are having problems growing healthy, productive plants. If your plants are failing to perform as expected a soil pH test should be in order.

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The post How To Improve Your Garden By Knowing Your Soil pH first appeared on Snowdrop Farm.