Soil pH: What It Measures & How It Affects Your Memphis Lawn

You want a green lawn, and that’s no crime.

But you may not have thought about the fact that you have to take a look beneath your lawn to have a better-looking expanse of green, thick grass.

That’s right, your soil is the foundation for the health of your Memphis and North Mississippi grass.

Your poor soil might lack organic matter, it might be compacted and its pH level might be way off. How would you know this? Well, your soil isn’t moaning and groaning about its troubles. So how do you know what’s going on down there?

You do a soil test. A soil test is one of the best tools available to glimpse at what’s happening beneath your lawn where its roots are. It shows you numerous things, including soil pH, a key characteristic of soil health.

Let’s talk about lawn soil testing, how to test soil pH, and professional soil testing, so you can better understand how soil pH can impact your lawn and what you can do to improve it.

Soil Testing 101

When you hire a lawn care professional to maintain your lawn, and they suggest doing a soil test as part of their program, you know they are looking into the health of your soil as a way to improve your grass. And this is a good thing.

Lawn soil testing provides you with some amazing details about what’s happening beneath your lawn and what you see above ground. Here are some key insights you learn through lawn soil testing.

Soil Test Timing

Good news: You can conduct lawn soil testing at any time of year.

The only thing limiting your ability to conduct a soil test is excess soil moisture. You really never want to take a fully saturated soil sample. For best results, you want your soil to be mostly dry.

It’s not necessary to get a soil test before starting a lawn care fertilization program. A reputable lawn care professional may even include a soil test as part of their services so they gain facts about your soil.

Lawn & Pest Solutions conducts soil testing every three years on lawns and on an as-needed basis if we identify a problem. We sample from different areas of a lawn to get a good cross-section of soil and send our samples to a professional lab. If we see areas that are worse than others, we can sample two or more areas and compare the nutrient levels and pH levels.

Know Your Soil pH

One of the key facts lawn soil testing tells you is your soil pH.

Why does soil pH matter? You want your lawn soil to be in a pH range that puts it in an ideal position to take in nutrients. Memphis and North Mississippi lawn soils thrive in a pH range between 6.0 and 6.5.

Lawns in different locations and different environmental conditions will have different pH ranges.

A shaded lawn will often have a low soil pH. And if that lawn is growing under nut-bearing trees, such as hickory, oak or pecan, this can reduce soil pH over time. Pine trees are prevalent in the South, and they thrive in low soil pH as well.

Our soils tend to be on the acidic side, so if your soil isn’t in the optimum range, it’s usually low. An acidic soil binds the essential nutrients to the point that the turf or plants cannot use the nutrients. In other words, if soil is acidic, grass will not grow correctly or be as green as you would like it to be.

Lime applications can help bring your soil up to the right pH. Maintenance lime applications are part of lawn care programs, but if your pH is excessively low, opting for corrective lime applications can help get your soil back to the right pH levels. Doing a soil test before this can help direct your lime applications.

Sulfur can help increase acidity in lawns, but lowering a high soil pH is a pretty slow process.

Do Lawns Have Different pH Needs Than Trees and Shrubs?

Yes, some plants have different pH needs, and lawn soil testing can show this.

For instance, azalea, rhododendrons and hollies thrive in acidic soils. 
When it comes to grasses, centipede grass grows well in acidic soil, but Bermuda, zoysia, fescue and St. Augustine grasses prefer a neutral pH.

What Else Can Lawn Soil Testing Show?

Another important nutrient you can identify in lawn soil testing is potassium. While nitrogen is important when growing warm-season grasses, potassium levels are also crucial to watch.

Potassium regulates cold tolerance and also affects root growth. Poor root growth leads to weak grass in cold, heat or drought conditions.

Learn More About Lawn Soil Testing

To get a great-looking lawn, you need to know more than just what’s happening above ground. You need to look beneath your lawn to see what lies beneath.

Professional soil testing can help you gain insights into why your fertilization might not be working, why your lawn might not be thriving, or give you reasons for raising pH levels in soil.

We hope our data about soil tests and pH levels helps you better understand their importance in an overall lawn care program.

If you’re still wondering about whether pH levels may be impacting your lawn, call Lawn & Pest Solutions. We can help you better understand what your Memphis and North Mississippi lawn is missing and provide suggestions on what it needs to look and perform its best.

Looking to improve the look of your lawn in Memphis and North Mississippi? We’d love to help. Get started today with a free quote. Together, we’ll prepare a customized plan so you can have the kind of lawn you love.