Soil Acid Or Alkaline?
 I received a question the other day about soil being
 acid or alkaline, as it relates to flowers.
Cultivated flowers fall into two groups based upon
soil preferance. One group will grow only in acid
soil with a pH below 6.5, while the others prefer
or will tolerate only alkaline soil, pH 6.5 or above.
Acid lovers are plants that thrive on raw humus,
such as their ancestors found in the woods, where
leaves drop from the taller trees.
Leaves, leafmold, peat moss, or other humus should
be incorporated in soil where they are to be planted.
Especially recommended are oak leaves, which produce
an acid humus.
The addition of bone meal supplies phosphorous;
cottonseed or blood meal supplies nitrogen.
Dry chicken manure, sheep manure, or compost
can be added to leaf mulches as one fourth of the
total.
Another question is, will flowering plants which
prefer alkaline soil, grow in the same bed as those
which grow only in acid soil?
There are acid-loving evergreens that need very
little nitrogen, no rich compost, just leaf mulches
and some bone meal. Likewise there are lilies
that like humus and a deep mellow shaded soil;
these two can grow together quite happily.
Many inexperienced gardeners think that they
must prepare different subsoils , this only leads
to a great deal of extra work.
Practically, the matter is not serious at all. Many
hundreds of thousands of gardens grow both
azaleas and columbines;campanulas, foxgloves,
coreopsis, carnations and rhododendrons.
It seems, indeed, as if the question of aciditiy
were over-emphasized.
Organic matter in the ground will act as a buffer
against extremes and enable the plants to seek
with their roots what they need, lime as well as
acid humus.
Since the acid-loving shrubby plants will usually
be in the background, more leaves may be left there,
while in the foreground, where carnations and tulips
may be planted, a slight sprinkling of lime is made
in the fall.
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