acidic soil help

[cknmom]

DH and I are working with DMIL on planning/landscaping her yards. She has two huge oak trees in back, so the soil around them is very acidic. Any suggestions of where I can find lists of plants that do well in acidic soil. DMIL will be watering and not much else, so I need to find plants that need almost no attention. I have looked afew places on-line with no luck. I will continue my search.

Thanks,
Monica

 

[seedcorn]

DH and I are working with DMIL on planning/landscaping her yards. She has two huge oak trees in back, so the soil around them is very acidic. Any suggestions of where I can find lists of plants that do well in acidic soil. DMIL will be watering and not much else, so I need to find plants that need almost no attention. I have looked afew places on-line with no luck. I will continue my search.

Thanks,
Monica

So why not lime the soil & get rid of some of acid?

 

[patandchickens]

She has two huge oak trees in back, so the soil around them is very acidic.

Back up a sec... have you actually had (or done) a reliable soil pH test done? If not, that is absolutely the first step. An awful lot of people (and I have at times been one of them ) go jumping to conclusions about what soil pH 'must' be according to what's growing there, but that is not really especially reliable, especially when you are inferring something about cause.

It is quite possible for the soil under an oak tree to be like 6.5-7, which is not very acidic at all.

If you HAVE done a (reliably accurate) soil test, then what exactly is the pH, because that will affect our recommendations.

As far as liming, I'd be leery of doing much of it around established trees unless you don't mind potentially losing them, which can happen although of course not always.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[cknmom]

DH did do testing several years ago, he does not remember exactly what it was, but knows it was high. We were planing on taking our test kit with us on Monday to check it again. Will post what it is next week.
Monica