Prepping for a plant paradise
July 2025
A 5-year-old purple clematis ‘Tie Dye’ vine blooms with attendant perennials and ornamental grasses. (photos courtesy Scott Burrell)
by Scott Burrell, Contributing Columnist
Many great plants are tough as nails, but even the most resilient may still fail the gardener or landscaper over time.
There are the usual suspects: disease, insects, water and sun issues, as well as humidity and temperature conundrums. For this gardener, soil is the foundational essential for the long life or quick death of plants. Build a great soil and you mitigate many of the other needs — from water to nutrients — that affect plant life.
A dwarf Japanese maple in its 12th year of growing in a container.
What is soil? Put simply, it’s a living entity — the web of minerals, organic matter, air, water, pore space, soil organisms and humus (a carbon-rich organic material) beneath your feet. When picked from its native environment and placed in your hand, it’s called dirt. Hundreds of books on soil science exist, and all agree on a vital component: organic matter. Think composted leaves, manure or other decomposed natural items.
When these are added in adequate amounts to the soil, the benefits are immense: They bind mineral particles into larger aggregates, improving soil structure while enhancing drainage in heavy soils and water-holding capacity in sandy soils; they buffer soils against pH changes, minimizing soil compaction; and offer fungi, bacteria and other microorganisms for promoting healthy growing conditions.
There are three main soil types — sand, silt and clay. Clay soils are notorious for poor drainage and oxygen-poor conditions that are bad news for plants. Silt is a bit coarser in texture and feels like flour when rubbed between your fingers. Finally, sand is the coarsest of the three soil texture categories. When combined in various proportions, these three textures give rise to a range of soil types, from the coastal plains to the highlands.
With a drainage issue in a heavy clay garden bed, rather than till up the clay, create a raised bed by adding 10 inches of sandy loam/compost mix.
My home garden soils are nearly right where I want them — a loam soil that combines all three of these types of particles — clay, sand and silt — in relatively equal amounts. Organic matter additions can correct many of the problems of less-than- ideal soils.
So, here’s the practical solution: Virginia, Maryland and Delaware all have a Cooperative Extension network that can analyze your soil samples. The results will provide you with a clear understanding of your soil’s composition. Just getting your pH right (raising it with lime or lowering it with sulfur, for example) ensures that your plants have access to major nutrients — such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium — and micronutrients, while avoiding the potential toxicity of aluminum in low-pH soils.
I will have more to say about good soil — and what to plant in it — in the September issue of Cooperative Living.
Shade-lovers have shallow root systems and, unlike the well-drained soil typical of sun-lovers, most prefer a high-moisture-retaining soil.
Scott Burrell is a certified horticulturalist who served as the horticulture director for the Virginia Historical Society for nearly 30 years.