pH and oaks

In a message dated 10/28/01 1:45:48 AM Eastern Standard Time, Meum71@aol.com 
writes:

<< A small little note on compost and soil pH.  Soil pH is determined by the 
 parent material of the soil and the effects of weathering on that material.  
 Compost or leaf litter has a negligible effect on pH and its effects are 
 limited to a small distance into the soil.
 
 Unless you are planting in pure compost I would not worry about its effects 
 on your normal soil pH. >>

I wonder if that can only partly true, Paul.  All of my surrounding fields 
and woodlands are populated by plants that grow in acid soils.  Hemlocks, 
black oaks, all the trees are those that grow in acid, infertile soils.  Our 
fields are littered with comptonia (sweet fern bush) a plant growing in acid, 
infertile soils.  We also have a weed called sour grass (one of the 
chenopodiums) which can be eliminated by heavy liming.  The sour grass is a 
major field plant and a weed in unimproved beds.

The nature of our mountainside is acid, infertile soil.  When beds are 
improved with compost just partly and manures plus wood chips and other 
things, the testing for pH is not reliable as the pH changes with amendments. 
 The woodland floor is littered with oak, conifer and beech. The only thing 
that will grow there are ferns.  We may have had other plants at one time but 
they are eaten by the deer. Mostly they would also be plants that grow in 
acidic litter that composed the first few inches of the woods.

If the composts made are from these trees and used on a constant basis, I 
think they would be more influential in the soil pH making one part of the 
soil makeup just as important as that which nature provides.  In short if not 
amended or limed, soils on our farm will not grow a large variety of plants.  
Do you not think a symbiosis with plant and soil exists?  

When I first lived here and went about identifying the plants growing here, 
it became apparent that many were plants that grow only in very low pH soil.  
Even our weeds are low pH weeds.  I should say that the ever popular creeping 
Charlie is OK here so it must be able to grow everywhere along with 
dandelions.  I do not use oak leave mulch, I use wood chips as we have wind.  
The wind is a spring factor in gardening here.  Tomato plants can be whipped 
around and destroyed without protection.  We lime the veg frames.  The wind 
is here all winter also, killing many vining plants and those that have 
tender buds.  Below freezing wind is a factor.

But back to acidic mulch.  If you already have soil that is of lowpH and add 
more acidic material you will not be growing dianthus or other lime loving 
plants.

Dianthus will start in the spring, grow a while and then become brown and 
crisp in the parts near the soil.  eventually the entire plant becomes weary 
and never makes it through a winter.  There is an ash pile here left by the 
former owner which was created by throwing the ashes down the front slope for 
years.  That patch of land grows dianthus much to my surprise.  It grows 
centranthus, and wonderful small irises.  Nothing else likes it there giving 
me the idea that lime is not sufficient to change the soil pH, a great shovel 
full of limerubble is much better. Hostas grow better in this mix also.

This is the only garden that I have owned in quite a few of the past that has 
had pH a factor in what I planted.  I should think that repeated mulching 
with oak, hemlock or beech would affect the pH of the soil unless the soil 
was naturally of an alkline nature.

Claire Peplowski
NYS z4

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