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1 - Analysing your soil
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Chalky soil
  • Alkaline, with a pH of 7.5 or more
  • Usually stony
  • Free draining
  • Often overlays chalk or limestone bedrock
  • This means some minerals, such as manganese (Mg) and iron (Fe), become unavailable to plants, causing poor growth and yellowing of leaves
  • This can be remedied by adding fertilisers
Chalky soil
©
Plant listsPlants for alkaline soil.
Loamy soil
  • The perfect soil
  • Good structure
  • Drains well
  • Retains moisture
  • Full of nutrients
  • Easy to cultivate
  • Warms up quickly in spring and doesn’t dry out in summer
  • Consider yourself very lucky if you have this soil
Loamy soil
©
Plant listsPlants for loamy soil.
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1. Know your plot

Introduction
Assessing your plot
Analysing your soil
 Soil types
 Soil ph
Drawing a survey
Test your knowledge
Go further

Highlights
Plant listsPlant lists
Plants for different soil types:

Find thousands more plants in the BBC Gardening database.
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Soil, what's it all about?
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Test your knowledge of planting in different lighting conditions. Or find out how totest your soil.
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