{"id":14604,"date":"2017-02-06T22:39:48","date_gmt":"2017-02-06T22:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/?p=14604"},"modified":"2017-02-06T19:52:50","modified_gmt":"2017-02-06T19:52:50","slug":"the-language-of-wet-soil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/flowers\/the-language-of-wet-soil\/","title":{"rendered":"Wet Soil Water-logging and Leaching"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If Prince Charles talks to his plants then possibly the soil talks back to him. It may not say I am impoverished and lacking in nutrients but the resulting plants will.<br \/>\nOn the other-hand wet soil can eloquently tell gardeners when there is trouble.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Pitcher plants by brianpettinger, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hortoris\/8047710485\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8035\/8047710485_94a78ac2d8.jpg\" alt=\"Pitcher plants\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Soil Conditions<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We have suffered an excess of water this year and farmers fields have been water logged or taken up the role of flood plain resource.<br \/>\nThe resulting &#8216;Clarty&#8217; soil is muddy, dirty and sticky.<br \/>\n&#8216;Claggy&#8217; soil is more like sticky mud and is a type of soil condition where all the air has been squeezed out. Then it adheres to your boots and leaves clumps where you walk.<br \/>\n&#8216;Boggy and soggy&#8217; soil tends to favoured by marshy water loving plants.<br \/>\n&#8216;Muddy&#8217; soil can ofter turn rock hard when it dries particularly if it is clayey. Clay is made up of fine particles that can almost be welded together when wet or dry.<br \/>\n&#8216;Swampy&#8217; implies a clammy warm environment you do not get in Yorkshire.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Leaching<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Good soil has a balance of minerals, humus and helpful fertilising chemicals. Too much rain or flowing water can take these chemicals away either deeper in the ground or to a drain or sump.\u00c2\u00a0 Leaching can be caused irrigation and flooding but mainly by the dissolving action particularly of nitrogen. Leached fertilizers and manures, creates problems of excess nitrogen in the soil.<\/p>\n<p>As a general rule sandy soil holds little water and goodness can be leached from the soil, while clay soils have high water-retention rates and the chemicals are harder to displace.<\/p>\n<p>If you have added fertiliser like growmore, blood fish and bone or\u00c2\u00a0 as a top dressing you do not want to see it washed away before your plants get the benefit. Generally granular fertiliser is most effective if it is lightly raked into the top soil intermediately after application.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Waterlogged Soil<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When the ground is fully saturated it is classed as waterlogged. Excess water will stand on the surface or slowly drain to a lower point. The soil will have oxygen displaced by water and the water will dissolve some of the good chemical elements of the soil. It is important not to walk on waterlogged soil as this exacerbates compaction and damages soil structure even further. Protracted water-logging can cause roots to rot.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pond Soil<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Plants in ponds need soil and a place for roots to develop. Soil in a\u00c2\u00a0 planting basket or pot with holes, make use of leaching\u00c2\u00a0 into the pond water. A hessian liner will\u00c2\u00a0 reduce any soil leaching and leaking out. Free circulating water will help pond plants to develop.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-12761\" src=\"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/flood-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/flood-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/flood-200x150.jpg 200w, https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/flood.jpg 667w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is your soil all claggy or just clarty. Has all the air been squeezed out and replaced by rain water? If so you are not alone but that may not help!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flowers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}