Soil Management

Plants have many needs to maintain their health and appearance: water, oxygen, nutrients, and a physical medium for their seeds to germinate and grow their roots. All of these items are, in part, provided by soil, making soil health tied to plant health. To ensure that your soil is healthy and supplies nutrients for your plants, you may need soil management: a collection of services and practices that preserve and improve your soil condition. Here is some information about what managing soil entails and how landscape professionals maintain soil health through various methods.

What Is Soil Management?

Soil management is applying various processes and practices to promote and maintain soil health and ensure plant health. Farmers and those in the agricultural industry manage soil to maintain crop health. Homeowners can also take advantage of this service to keep their properties pristine and their landscapes healthy and valuable. Managing soil is ultimately about creating and maintaining the conditions that meet plants’ essential needs, and is an area of plant health care (PHC).

Plant nutrients and organic matter are especially crucial factors for soil and are often a significant element of soil management practices. Plants need certain nutrients like phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and magnesium to stay healthy. Organic matter improves the soil’s capacity to hold water, helps keep the soil aerated so roots can grow, promotes biological activity, and helps fight pests. Knowing how rocky the soil is or the soil’s pH balance, is also crucial to determining how to properly care for the soil and the plants in a landscape.

What Does Soil Management Involve?

As mentioned above, managing soil involves various practices that culminate in healthier soil for homeowners. Below is an overview of the general process of managing and promoting soil health.

Soil Testing

The first step involved in soil management is to test the soil and analyze its current condition. Soil testing provides information such as nutrient levels and organic matter. A landscape professional needs to develop and tailor plans to a particular area to most effectively address the soil’s needs. Landscape professionals test the soil to figure out what those needs are. The test results influence the overall plan and some of the specific strategies a landscape professional will use.

Adding Plant Nutrients & Organic Matter

Nutrients and organic matter are vital to the soil, and depending on the test results of a property, adding these two elements is a significant aspect of soil management. Landscape professionals have many options when adding nutrients or organic matter to the soil. Fertilizers and lime are used to supplement plant needs. Lime contains magnesium carbonate and calcium carbonate, which can increase pH and decrease soil acidity. Composting is an excellent way of adding organic matter to the soil.

Other soil management techniques and practices include the following:

• Mulching around trees or flowers
• Irrigating
• Aerating
• Removing weeds

Soil is one of the most critical factors for your plants’ health, and a plant health care professional will manage your soil to keep your property beautiful.

Contact Burkholder Brothers for Soil Management & Other Landscape Services

Your landscape’s health and value are dependent on your soil, and Burkholder Brothers can care for and manage this aspect of your landscape. Burkholder Brothers has years of experience designing, building, and maintaining fine landscapes in the Main Line area. In addition to plant health care and soil management, we offer other services such as turf care, irrigation, landscape design, and more. Our passionate team of landscape professionals will bring pristine beauty to your landscape, making your dream landscape a reality. For more information, contact us today.

Blog is originally published at: https://www.burkholderlandscape.com/soil-management/

It is republished with permission from the author.