Soil Management

If you want healthy and vigorous flowers and ornamentals, you need to manage the soil properly. The quality of flower bed soil is important. On this page, you’ll find information on soil management of ornamentals and floriculture, including soil testing, choosing plants to thrive in various soil conditions, proper fertilization, and compost.

Soil Management for Floriculture and Landscape Horticulture

Optimal soil conditions are crucial for all stages of plant development. Understand the soil and how best to manage it and you’ve got the best foundation for a productive landscape and garden. You can grow flowers and ornamentals in most soils, but they grow best when you’re able to meet the plants' varying needs.

Determine the fertility of your soil by testing it. As well as the fertility, soil testing also determines the acidity or alkalinity of the soil, the optimum lime and fertilizer requirements for your plants. Without this knowledge, you could very easily over-fertilize your potted plants.

There are various ways you can overcome poor quality soil. Raised beds, for example, provide a unique opportunity for you to effectively manage the quality of the soil. Select the right contents for the raised bed and you can control texture, drainage, and organic matter content.

You can also improve the quality and health of your soil and there are several production methods of compost, each of which has both benefits and drawbacks.

Salt damage is a particularly common problem during the winter. Sodium chloride is commonly used by residential property owners, landscape contractors, and township supervisors in Pennsylvania for de-icing roads and sidewalks. However, overuse can lead to a chemical drought in plants and salt spray from roads and driveways can burn the needles of evergreen leaves and damage the following year’s growth.

Flowers and Ornamentals for Dry or Wet Soils

Very few plants will grow in soil that is constantly saturated with water. Poorly drained soil can be a problem for plants as it can suffocate root systems and kill the plant. Similarly, soil that is extremely dry is not an optimum growing environment for flowers and ornamentals. There are, however, plants that can tolerate such extreme conditions. Here are some examples:

• Dry to moist soil/sun to part shade: black haw viburnum, sassafras, prickly pear cactus, black-eyed Susan
• Wet to moist soil/sun to part sun: pin oak, swamp white oak, New York ironweed, Stokes’ aster
• Dry to moist soil/shade to part shade: mapleleaf viburnum, alumroot, white and blue wood aster
• Wet to moist soil/shade to part shade: inkberry, spicebush, ostrich fern, creeping phlox.

Find more information on plants’ soil requirements and fertility management in this section. Advice on soil testing, fertilization, and compost is also available.