Author: Burkholder PHC

Plants have many needs to maintain their health and appearance: water, oxygen, nutrients, and a physical medium for their seeds to germinate and grow their roots. All of these items are, in part, provided by soil, making soil health tied to plant health. To ensure that your soil is healthy and supplies nutrients for your plants, you may need soil management: a collection of services and practices that preserve and improve your soil condition. Here is some information about what managing soil entails and how landscape professionals maintain soil health through various methods.

Soil management is applying various processes and practices to promote and maintain soil health and ensure plant health. Farmers and those in the agricultural industry manage soil to maintain crop health. Homeowners can also take advantage of this service to keep their properties pristine and their landscapes healthy and valuable. Managing soil is ultimately about creating and maintaining the conditions that meet plants’ essential needs, and is an area of plant health care (PHC).

Plant nutrients and organic matter are especially crucial factors for soil and are often a significant element of soil management practices. Plants need certain nutrients like phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and magnesium to stay healthy. Organic matter improves the soil’s capacity to hold water, helps keep the soil aerated so roots can grow, promotes biological activity, and helps fight pests. Knowing how rocky the soil is or the soil’s pH balance, is also crucial to determining how to properly care for the soil and the plants in a landscape.

As mentioned above, managing soil involves various practices that culminate in healthier soil for homeowners. Below is an overview of the general process of managing and promoting soil health.

The first step involved in soil management is to test the soil and analyze its current condition. Soil testing provides information such as nutrient levels and organic matter. A landscape professional needs to develop and tailor plans to a particular area to most effectively address the soil’s needs. Landscape professionals test the soil to figure out what those needs are. The test results influence the overall plan and some of the specific strategies a landscape professional will use.

Nutrients and organic matter are vital to the soil, and depending on the test results of a property, adding these two elements is a significant aspect of soil management. Landscape professionals have many options when adding nutrients or organic matter to the soil. Fertilizers and lime are used to supplement plant needs. Lime contains magnesium carbonate and calcium carbonate, which can increase pH and decrease soil acidity. Composting is an excellent way of adding organic matter to the soil.

Other soil management techniques and practices include the following:

• Mulching around trees or flowers
• Irrigating
• Aerating
• Removing weeds

Soil is one of the most critical factors for your plants’ health, and a plant health care professional will manage your soil to keep your property beautiful.

Your landscape’s health and value are dependent on your soil, and Burkholder Brothers can care for and manage this aspect of your landscape. Burkholder Brothers has years of experience designing, building, and maintaining fine landscapes in the Main Line area. In addition to plant health care and soil management, we offer other services such as turf care, irrigation, landscape design, and more. Our passionate team of landscape professionals will bring pristine beauty to your landscape, making your dream landscape a reality. For more information, contact us today.

Plants can add a great deal of value and beauty to a landscape if they are healthy. While plants have the same basic needs, one plant’s health risks may be entirely different from another, even those on the same property. So what is Plant Health Care? Plant health care is the answer to the complexities and intricacies of keeping various kinds of plant life in the same landscape healthy. Through careful consideration of each plant’s needs and preventive measures, plants can remain healthy and make your landscape vibrant and attractive.

Plant health care is a comprehensive and proactive holistic approach to maintaining the health and vitality all of the plants on a person’s property. Plants reside close to each other on a lawn, so actions that affect one plant (such as a tree) could affect others (such as a nearby shrub or flower bed). Landscape professionals use this type of plan as the basis of their lawn care and landscaping services, carefully considering the complexity of the plant life, and create a holistic program that ensures all of the plants will grow and prosper.

The primary goal of health care programs is to foster and maintain the proper environment for all plants on a property: trees and shrubs to flowers and grasses. Preventive care is another core goal, as preventing health issues from occurring is more effective than resolving ones that appear or spring up. Plants are susceptible to many environmental conditions, such as weather or pests and diseases. Fixing these issues is essential, but plant health care takes an extra step and proactively creates the environment and conditions that prevent problems from occurring in the first place.

One of the benefits of plant health care is that your landscape stays beautiful and attractive. To maintain their beauty, plants need to be healthy, and they need a comprehensive plan that supports and promotes growth. The holistic and proactive approach also means that landscape professionals can resolve any issues that affect your plants’ health and beauty much sooner, before any long-term damage.

In addition to a more beautiful and attractive landscape, a plan that ensures your plants are healthy can help make your property more valuable. For example, large, mature trees can add significant value to a property, but the trees need to be healthy and safe to provide that value. A holistic, thorough care plan can keep trees beautiful and healthy throughout their entire life cycles, so your trees can continue to be a good investment, both financially and aesthetically.

Now you have the answer to “What is plant health care?” Ready for a plan for your landscape to keep your plants healthy and vibrant? Contact Burkholder Brothers for a consultation. Our landscaping team has decades of experience designing and building elegant, refined landscapes for Main Line residents. We are up to date with the latest knowledge and best practices on landscape health and beauty. The passionate and experienced specialists at Burkholder will work with you to create your dream landscape. For more information on our services, contact us today.