Have you had a professional soil test done? What is the current soil pH? I ask because most of the northwest/New England area tends to acidic soils.....in some cases pretty highly acidic soils. And depending on your current soil pH, there is a limit on how much it can be altered easily. It will be difficult for you to lower pH much more than one full pH point.

Elemental/agricultural sulfur is the recommended product/method for lowering soil pH. But it will not have an immediate impact - it takes time for the reaction to occur. And it will not be permanent......you will need to reapply probably every growing season (or the fall before).

btw, most plants will prefer at least a slightly acidic soil as that condition allows the greatest availability of necessary soil nutrients. Roses are not acid lovers....like the vast majority of plants they prefer things just on the low side of the pH midpoint, anywhere from 6.0 to 6.9 with 6.5 being almost ideal. And that is considered to be almost neutral :-) Acid lovers tend to be ericaceous plants like rhododendrons, azaleas, kalmias, blueberries, etc. that want/need a soil pH of less than 6.0.

Gardengal - I didn't have a professional test but I have one of those home tests that you stick in the ground and it makes the meter move. When I did it the results were 7 / 8 in different areas. I had always heard MA had acidic soils so I was disappointed when I saw mine was higher. But I'm starting to suspect I should get a professional test done haha. After I get this test and the results is it ok to apply elemental sulfur in the winter?

I do have legitimately alkaline soil. The pH is 7.2, no matter who tests it, or how often. By eastern standards that is incredibly high - practically quicklime. I blame being at the bottom of an ice age lake.

Get a professional test as a baseline. If it truly is alkaline, forget the acid-loving plants. It is extremely difficult to change the clay.

The only reason the roses are not going to be happy is if they are either some sort of hybrid multiflora, or they are budded onto multiflora rootstock. That is the rootstock Palatine uses, so it adds another level of difficulty. A lot of mine go through an 'awkward age' when they transition from rootstock to own root.

Absolutely, positively DO NOT go throwing stuff around because you 'think' you need it. Start with a real soil test, then go from there.

Note: Edited to fix my fumble-fingered spelling error.

Most definitely get a professional soil test. Most kits will simply report the pH of the water used, even if it's distilled. Which will simply be right around 7. Most sticks will simply report whatever they feel like reporting, which will usually be random.

Regardless of the result, changing the soil pH toward the acidic would be incredibly difficult. While elemental sulfur is often recommended, and is the University-recommended additive, I've never actually seen it work effectively out here in the real world where people actually live.

So it's no wonder Google is a bit conflicted about all this.

Sulfur is, frankly, often useless. Applied up top, much gets lost to the air as smog (sulfur dioxide). So thanks for the air pollution, but it didn't do a vast amount of good for your soil. Dug in works best, but doing so damages your soil's structure, which can take months to years to restore fully...and the pH shift doesn't last long, so the structure is always disturbed. This is why we have "no-till" farming and why organic matter burns off from heavily-disturbed soils. It's not a good thing and makes the soils more sensitive to your pH by reducing their buffer against any changes.

However, all is not lost. You actually can grow most plants in soils that aren't exactly their preferred pH, but you may have to take special care with them, and I wouldn't push things too terribly far unless this is a hobby for you.

So if a formal soil test were to come back with a pH of 7.2, rhododendrons would be...doable, actually, but difficult, and prone to being rather yellowed (but anything under 7.0 would be fine for them, really). In this case, sulfur wouldn't be the correct solution. I'd use ferrous sulfate, not to acidify the soil, but to supply iron--and I'd spray it on the plant as well as apply it in a less-fixed form, like Milorganite, where the actual pH would matter a bit less.

Which is exactly what I do as I have a rodie in my gardens, which are generally around a pH of 6.7. Which is rather too high for rhododendrons, but isolating that particular spot, while difficult, just isn't going to happen. Same with the azalea out back.

Which is more effort than most people would want to put in.

That's theoretical. I actually don't do jack for either of those, nor the other azalea, nor the evergreens. They've all adjusted to the soil just fine, thank you, and did very well even when I over-drove the pH to well over seven for a few years...

Some plants adjust very easily indeed. Grasses just don't care very much (this being posted in the Lawn Care forum as well), and will flourish perfectly well in pH up to 8. Color may suffer a bit, and resources may need adjustment so that they're available at optimal levels no matter what the pH (where possible), but that can be done.

I do that here, so if you post the test and are interested, I'll be happy to give it a read...I read Logan tests and will generally try to take a crack at others, but won't try that hard (I do this free and won't and can't research every other test).

I'd start with a good test and go from there. Under 7.0? Don't worry so much. Over 7.0? That would be...unusual...for your area and require some special care.

Just wanted to confirm that applying agricultural sulfur does work in the real world....which is precisely why it is recommended to lower soil pH! And you do not need to dig it in heavily .....just a light cultivation into an existing planting bed will suffice and that does not destroy soil structure anymore than digging a hole and adding a new plant. Or cultivating to remove weeds. But as noted, it will not be an immediate cure nor will it be a permanent one and depending on what the existing pH is, may not even be a practical approach.

I also teach classes on soils for homeowners and while I would never discourage one from having a professional soil test done - that is the ONLY way to get an accurate nutrient assessment - I can assure you that the home pH test kits like LusterLeaf Rapitest can provide a remarkably accurate result. I have done side by side comparisons and the results are uniformly comparable. OTOH, meters or probes are seldom that accurate unless of a high scientific grade and correctly calibrated. There is just too much room for error.

Actually, I have a technical question. "I also teach classes on soils for homeowners and while I would never discourage one from having a professional soil test done - that is the ONLY way to get an accurate nutrient assessment - I can assure you that the home pH test kits like LusterLeaf Rapitest can provide a remarkably accurate result."

That sentence contradicts itself with "ONLY way to get an accurate nutrient assessment" and "remarkably accurate result."

So...which one is correct? If I don't need to be paying for a scientific test and can cheap out, it would be ever so much easier for me to do so and get my boron results ever so much more easily at home.

A home pH test kit is not the same as a home soil nutrient test kit - they are two different tests. One has the ability to provide home gardeners with a pretty accurate result (if done properly) while the other is just a waste of time and money.

Soil pH is relatively easily tested for while soil nutrient evaluations are not. If you want your boron levels evaluated, get a professional soil test. If you just want to measure soil pH a home test kit can work perfectly well.

a good place to start is your local COUNTY Ag or Extension office ... i think they are often in the same building ...

they should have a good handle on local COUNTY soil conditions ...

they used to offer soil tests thru the state Ag college.. but i think gal has said previously .. that they do not do that any more ... or maybe i dreamed it ... lol ...

it might be a situation ... where the can tell you generally ... what you need to know ... or at least set you on a path ...

one of the problems with the world wide web. . is that often.. authors fail to tell location ... so the reader is left wondering how it all applies to localities ...

if you joined a local garden club.. if any are left ... you could be touring local gardens ... and seeing with your own eyes ... what grows or doesnt grow locally ... and have a resource of local peeps who have probably tried everything you are trying to do ...

believe it or not.. there might come a time.. when you need to put down the gizmo ... and try reality ... lol ....

ken

Just to mix it up more.. even if an area or part of the country is acidic or neutral in general.... a home owner’s yard (like mine) is highly alkaline due to how the home is built. So you subsoil basement is many times dumped out on any decent soil the property started with ... or the yards are leveled out with subsoil full soil they bring in. My yard tested (OSU) at a ph of 8.

As others noted most plants have settled in just fine with using yearly applications of leaf mulch to help a bit. The few plants that I see chlorosis with ... I apply sulphur once or twice a year and they green up after a while.

For s much longer term effect though, I am double digging areas and removing a lot of the fill dirt and adding in more neutral amendments which allows me to skip the sulphur in those areas all together.

The more I learn about local geology, the more I realize that the usual assumptions are massive oversimplifications. The mixing of soil layers wasn't done here by a bulldozer, but by a glacier or five. Add in that the Taconics were once limestone mountains about 6 miles high, and you can get massive changes in soil type in fairly small areas, depending on how streams ran several thousand years ago. If you look at the pH map of the US that has been posted (and which I can never find when I want it) the high pH areas in the Hudson and Mohawk river valleys is probably a result of that. Lake Albany was the glacial lake that was formed when there was an ice dam in the Hudson Highlands, near West Point. When that lake drained, it didn't drain south through the current Hudson River channel, but north, through the Champlain valley.

Unfortunately, IME Cooperative Extension isn't the group that knows these things. Soil & Water are the people to talk to. They told me that the highest pH they have seen come back in a county soil test was about 8.0. That was from the eastern part of the county, near the Conn. line. One of the few areas in country with true caliche is in the Shawangunks near New Paltz. Believe it or not, wild mountain laurels grow in that stuff.

I've yet to have trouble with a plant where I cannot find those magic words 'prefers acid soil'. If they can handle it, I've done well planting acid lovers 'wet'. I have a swamp so that is an option. I think that is why the pin oaks have done fine in an area they are notoriously short lived. The big issue is that hardy, shade tolerant evergreens are almost all ericacious. So I keep knocking my head against a wall trying to find something to replace the deer candy yews on the north side of my two story house. My strong suspicion is that is a large part of the OP's problem. Particularly since most garden centers employees have little idea unamended soil with a pH above 6 exists anywhere near here.

If you don't understand the geographic references don't worry. This post wasn't written for you.