plant them and they will grow
16.00 is reasonable for soil testing... but I'd much rather buy my own kit.... I found one in an organic farming/gardening catalog for 60 bones... If I remember correctly, it would do 35 pH, 15 N, 15 P and 15 K tests.... and as far as advertised it had no expiration date... others I had reviewed had obvious expiration dates mentioned and were much cheaper in price.....
one thing we must mention....soil testing isn't necessary for starting a recreational planting area... seriously since you are taking good measures to improve the soil quality ne ways... what would be better though... is to compost those leaves with that manure over the winter... then come spring.. till that compost into the native soil along with some shredded wood mulch or straw for added loaminess... you'd be able to dig into that bed with just your bare hand =)Since prime hosta season kinda ended a couple months or more ago... I have been working with plastic barrels... building various composter designs and getting some good results... soil tests are fun... don't get me wrong... been working with different small batch recipes for compost... i'm working with 55 gallon barrels... keeping track of what I put in each barrel... I'm wanting to buy this soil testing kit to test my compost batches to see what recipes give me what results... I think it will be neat... I'm composting mainly things I have a plentiful supply of... and am working on a batch with black walnut hulls... black walnut hulls contain juglone... a toxin with herbicide properties... certain plants will not survive in the soil... but I'm pretty sure most if not all hostas will... If I can get a close to perfectly rich soil...that will grow hostas and kill weeds... can you say oh yeah! lol...
Go Melissa Go
John

With all that limestone there for so long, I would want to know the ph, and I would want to measure it both before and after you add the soil amendments. So I agree with John. Buy a kit and measure it yourself.

Steve

Hmmm...I'm inclined to agree with John. Pile on the organic matter and call it good. We all know hostas are not fussy about soil. The compost should have all the nutrients they need.

Now if your new hostas are not growing as expected in 2-3 years, a test may be in order. I suspect they will do just fine, though!

Looks like your bed will have a lot, or even full sun. Now would be a great time to install soaker hoses. Those hostas will need more water. You might also consider raising that retaining wall to make your bed more level. You have a very pretty home by the way.

With the varying degree of accuracy in soil test kits, if you are going to test I'd go through the U of MN so you know its correct. The price is very reasonable and it would be good to have a starting point you could rely on.

tj

The saga with this bed continues. I was out with a soil cultivator today... kinda a garden fork kinda thing.... loosening the soil so that the mulched up leaves could settle into the air pockets with the spring rains and thaw. The previous owner, of whom I regularly question and curse the landscape decisions, installed a very questionable means of lighting the landscape.

There's a 3" pvc pipe running under the sidewalk you see in pic 1... that's not the questionable part though. I runs into the bed at the left, which I've replanted and now contains annabelle hydrangea. The pvc pipe in the bed I'm working in, has a rock trench running from the pvc at the sidewalk out to the corner of the retaining wall, next to the ninebark. Um, HUH? It's almost like a drain/dry rock bed, but it's not even properly done for that!....

Looks like your bed will have a lot, or even full sun. Now would be a great time to install soaker hoses. Those hostas will need more water. You might also consider raising that retaining wall to make your bed more level. You have a very pretty home by the way.

Yes, swmo, you're correct. It will be getting nearly full sun as it will be from approx 10am to 3pm, with the tree's current canopy shadow. And I'd already planned on doing either a soaker or drip for that area. There is already a sprinkler head by the driveway (approx where the ninebark tree is), so I was just going to tap off of that or add a separate drip line off the faucet at the side of the house.... we'll see what hubby is willing to help with in that arena!

That retaining wall used to be another course higher and that allowed for the limestone to be level(ish) up by the sidewalk. However, in our 2nd year here, we noticed that the rock had pushed the retaining all stones forward as the were not properly set. So, we took off the top layer so as not to draw attention to the fact that they were tipping forward. We're not willing to do the work to correct the wall's foundation, so we'll have to just deal with it as it is, unfortunately.

I'm sorta leaning toward testing at the U... I know it'd be accurate that way.

A hosta bed in full sun! In one of my sunny spots in zone 5a Blue Cadet was doing fine, but the supposedly sun tolerant Fragrant Bouquet and Orange Marmalade got burned up several times, reflushed but never looked good after June. I will use dwarf conifers in there next year. Heathers are doing fine too in my yard in the sun.
It is good to know the soil (ph, nutrients) in several parts of the landscape. In the past I had bought a kit which seemed to give me satisfactory results.
Good luck!
Bernd

Bernd..
I'm zone 4a in Minnesota, so I don't get a ton of heat and the angle of the sun isn't so bad. I plan on only using sun tolerant varieties and being generous with water. I know a couple people her in MN who have fairly sunny hosta beds and they're doing well.

Worst case scenario, I'll move everything back to my shady garden.

That's one of the things I love about hosta; you can move them around so easily.

Melissa,
yes I saw the zone 4a, my bad experience must have led to not acknowledge the one zone difference to my 5a.
Have fun!
Bernd

Melissa:

On a different forum, I am the Soils and Composting Forum moderator. I read and interpret hundreds of soil tests a year, and I can't begin to tell you just how important a good soil test, DONE PROFESSIONALLY, is. The home kits are for the most part garbage.

To grow plants and lawns to be the best they can be, there are nutrients that are critical in the tiniest amounts, and they're never in standard fertilizer. Some of them are so tiny that they are a tablespoon in a 1000 sq ft area. Yes, Hosta is remarkably tolerant of poor soil conditions, but if you have ever seen a plant before/after a soil adjustment, you'll never doubt again. I had a person from Canada that had a dying personal-favorite rhodo that is recovering well after a teaspoon of the right nutrient. Try UMASS ($13 including micronutrient testing) or Logan Labs ($20 including micronutrients). They're the best labs. Post your results here and I'll interpret them for you.