Understanding your Soil

Understanding your soil is a key aspect of gardening and landscaping, because once you know what kinds of plants will do well in your soil, you can use that information to keep healthy plants. Here are a few distinctions between different soil types, along with some characteristic of each.

Soil type generally refers to the texture and components to the soil. Soils have differing amounts of clay, fine rock, organic material and sand, each of which requires different care. The ratio of these components determines the classification. There are many classifications, but the principles are the same for like classes.

Differing soil types have different characteristics. for instance, large sand particles determine drainage, and should be aerated. Soil with any amount of clay will be chemically active binding water and plant nutrients. There are services that can tell you what type of soil you have, and then you can use this to your landscaping advantage.

Tyler Kaiser
T. J. Landscaping