Gardening magazine journalist Adam Pasco has shared his tips on how to determine your garden’s soil type. In a YouTube video for B&Q in 2015, Adam shared a step-by-step video showing how to identify and improve your soil. Knowing your garden’s soil type can help you figure out how well certain plants will grow and flower.
“If you take a handful and squeeze it and it sticks together, it’s probably got more clay in it.”
To make clay soils more free-draining, Adam recommended adding materials like sand and grit.
He added: “Clay soils stay wetter and more water logged and if you want to make them more free-draining, we can dig in some gravel or some grit and sand.
“If your soil is very free draining like this, we want to make sure it’s going to lock in more moisture.
Adam explained: “The other thing you’ve got to look at – it’s about the chemical composition of soil and that’s its pH.
“Now, what you’ll find is that we want our gardens to have a neutral pH because a neutral soil is great for so many plants or shrubs.
“But some people live in a part of the country where they’ve got more chalk and that makes the soil alkaline.
“Other people live in an area where the soil is more peaty and that’s more acidic.”
