Found a webpage for you, Ken.

Here is a link that might be useful: Plant Nutrient description - NCAGR

Hi Ken, lets see whats left over from some lectures.
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".. my pH tends to be a bit high"
not sure whether I get you right: usually, a high pH is 7.5 or more and would be alkaline. Liming would increase the pH even further.

On sandy soil, liming + compost are often recommended, as lime is used up and / or breaks down and can counterbalance the (acid) compost. And in general sandy soil tends to get too acid, as grains of sand (granite most often) can't store fertilizers, only organic particles (compost/ humus) particles can do that. Or clay particles.
Good stuff to use is grounded dolomitic rocks= dolomitic lime.

Too much lime/ high pH-levels locks some elements like Fe (iron) up in the soil. Thats why fussy roses get chlorosis on limey soil or too much building rubble. A high pH-levels makes most of the fertilizer elements immobile.

" is there any difference between powder and pellatized ???"
in general the smaller the particles the faster they are useable for the plants. pellets would take somewhat longer to break down.

I would use lime in autumn, but saying that, an Italian neighbour at our allotment, a serious vegi hunter, smothers his lot with lime in early spring, on bare soil.
Hope that helps, bye, Lin

You do not want to use lime if your pH is above 7. Lime will increase your pH.

The difference is, Ken, that pelletized lime has had a bonding agent added that enables it to be formed into pellets that dissolve quickly when it rains. It's easy to spread and not messy but costs a little more.

Powdered lime is messy, gets all over the place like flour and isn't easy to apply. If you are going to till it in, go for the cheap and get powdered lime. If you are going to surface spread, go for the pelletized stuff.

As for whether you need it or not, what linaria said.

I do use a sidedressing of lime every two or three years (or whenever I remember to do it) on my lilacs, but would not use it on anything else without a soil test.

ken, pay attention to these people....never, ever add lime unless you know for certain that the soil requires it. If the pH 'tends' to be a little bit high, you don't need to be adding lime.

Sandy soils, or plants growing in such, can certainly benefit from fertilizers or SOME sort of added nutritional resources. And if, for some reason, you are convinced that your hosta must have some lime, go to gypsum. Pelletized. It won't affect the pH.

Ken -
Do NOT lime !!!
It will raise your pH even more...
My native soil (near Traverse City) is sand with low fertility. I've managed over time to substantially improve the soil fertility and water/holding - nutrient-holding capacity by adding compost, and regularly mulching.

What are the symptoms, if any, that you are seeing in your plants that cause you to want to add something?

(By the way, I had a soil test done - pH around 7.1, low in potassium and magnesium, high in phosphorus... that gave me the info I needed to know what to add -
and it wasn't lime - it was SulPoMag and of course, some nigrogen...)

And if you're not committed to organics, then a time-release fertilizer like Osmocote is a great choice for sandy soil where the nutrients tend to quickly wash through the soil and disappear from the root zone). But work on building up the organic content of the soil, regardless!

Beth Z5 Northern Michigan

What is high...have you gotten a soil analysts?

it was more than a week ago .. lol

So have you done a test yet...curious minds want to know!

why yes.. for once.. i actually did what i recommend.. lol ...

check out the link ..

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Alrighty!

thought you got me.. eh????

lol

ken

Did you need to lime?