Pakistan Gardening Forum

Initially, I wasn't much serious of checking the PH of the soil in pots.
But before embarking into putting up Annual flowers I just gave it a try, to my surprise the PH found to be 4.5 !
I believe it is not healthy.
Any suggestion how can it be improved ? is it required to be improved? why ?

A pH of 4.5 is quite acidic. When you tested this pot soil, were any plants growing in those pots or is it just fresh garden soil from a bag? If it is fresh pot soil, wash it with water till you see brown colour leaching from the bottom of them pot and let it sit for a day or so. Does the pH increase?

You might add a very small amount of lime or crushed egg shells, if the pH stays so low.

Strange, i checked my garden soil PH with the kit you sent that was 7.5 and my tap water was 8. I now usually add sulphur and ferrous sulphate on all my plants. I had added some peat moss to my plants believing that it will lower the PH but now i noticed that the peat moss bag was already treated with lime to balance the PH to 6.5. I use lots of FS and sulphur as i am growing many gardenias and magnolias they all require low PH.

This soil is from last year pots , plants like Petunia , Vinca , Coleus have grown in these and well established ladt year. Crossandra and Jasmine doing fine but Carnation, Tube rose and Caladiums are hating it. I have just sown some Pentas which are growing and budding exuberantly but have brown leaf tips.
Farooq what if I leave the PH as acidic as it is now. How can I increase PH of the already potted plants?
Khabab when I was in Saudi , I had PH 8 and I used vinegar in watering to bring it less than 7.
I am using potting soil based on wood bark.


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Adnan, I think you can try mixing finely crushed egg shells with your soil. Egg shells are almost >99% pure calcium carbonate. Is little bit of lime (calcium hydroxide) available? I might suggest to err on the side of acidic pH, since plants will rarely like alkaline soil.

I am little doubtful about accuracy of the pH indicator. For sure, it must have been tested very well, but a pH of 4.5 with healthy plant growth says something otherwise. You may know that a famous scientist used to say "Theory guides, experiment decides". This is exactly your case. Check the pH of vinegar with it and see what is the reading.

Just found quite unacceptable results, very low PH in one batch of potting mix. Last year soil mix also shown very low PH. A healthy PH on a fresh Miracle Grow potting mix also observed.

Looks like PH meter is OK but I am surprised how Jasmine and tube roses surviving in these low PH soils.
M


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From where can i get hydrometer and ph meters?

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