I would call someone in to properly take the bottom 6" of an 8" hole. And test it on site. Properly creating the sample is the part most people miss when getting a home sample to mail off.

Having done thousands of pH tests in this area, I will tell you there a 99% chance you will be sitting on 7.2 pH.

Because I freely give of my time... sharing my education, decades of experience and professional integrity to HELP people. For no reason other than to help people that may be baited into making financially costly mistakes by selfish or misguided "helpers".

If you read some of my other helpful posts, you can put together my resume' as I have in past threads "shown my qualifications". But I am busy with more productive endeavors, so I won't be typing out my plethora of qualifications in the field being discussed.
Besides, knowing and speaking the truth is the only qualification that really matters.

PLEASE say no to rubber mulch.
it is expensive and leeches bad stuff into the soil. It would be illegal to bury it in a landfill even. LARGE size pinebark will control weeds better than any other mulch.

Different weeds require different measure to get under control. Sadly there is nowhere close to enough people out there pulling weeds as a business to cover the need.
I do suggest Preen being used soon and often to stop most of the "new" weeds from emerging. At least then you can focus on getting the existing weeds under control that came up from the soil below.

That post sounds eerily similar to that of a failed politician! ;)

Seriously though, I don’t think most doubt that you may have some experience in the thread topic....it’s your initial delivery. I’ve said this in the past, most on here cut and paste responses and others (and you can tell the difference) respond with institutional knowledge. ToTV is not Indeed. Remember, it’s a forum.....not everything you read on here is factual or useable. It’s usually somewhere in the middle

The "cut and paste" just hit me the wrong way this time. Shoulda drank that 2nd cup of coffee and played my guitar before work instead of ranting about it. Moving on.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Hate palms, too much maintenance. Never again!

I'm a bit confused by this. If the soil is alkaline then you would not want calcium carbonate nor dolomite, as they both neutralize acid. In other words they are alkaline.

In addition, coffee has been used to lower the pH making it more acid.

Maybe just a mix up on the scale, but FYI...

pH above 7 is alkaline/caustic.
pH below 7 is acidic.

You are correct.
The lime was suggested by a "reply", not by me.
Coffee works great to amend the pH in this area.

I'm not a fan of huge beds or yards of stone. I do have volcanic lava rocks inside a small circle on my flowerbed, which I've used curved stone to isolate it. I put a potted plant on top of it. It's just for decoration and I still have to pull the weeds out of it several times each season. The rest of the flower bed is the thick big pine bark chunks (not shredded) on top of whatever crappy soil the garden came with, which apparently is partly on top of some old nasty weed barrier cloth, with more soil under it. Who knows. I still have to weed the bed, I do it by hand. I don't use "weedkiller" at all. But the impatiens and vinca grow wild and gorgeous, and I have other plants in pots between the pinks and whites, and the squirrels brought me some lovely elephant ears as a focal point on one side of the bed.

I would much prefer to use cedar bark but none of the stores had any in stock when I was preparing the season's planting. I just LOVE the smell of cedar, and ants and cockroaches hate it.

Love cedar!
Wonder if eucalyptus would have the same effect if available

Cedar wood strips with a drop of Cedar oil on in wardrobes, deter clothes moths.
We had a build up of the little perishers a couple of years ago.
After initial 'chemical blitz' the Cedar oil seems to deter them very well.
Cedar is good stuff.

Yup. In a previous life I was a certified aromatherapist (which requires some understanding of organic chemistry and the molecular structure of aromatic plants). Cedarwood oil has a very high sesquiterpene content. Thujopsene in particular. You'll find that in conifers like cedar, pine, and juniper. They all have varying insect-repelling qualities as a result.

Cedar is great, expensive when you find it. Cypress is in the cedar family and was used extensively till they made harvesting for mulch illegal. Eucalyptus would be good too, but is considered an invasive species in FL.

Wish I knew where all the cypress and cedar goes as they clear a path for the urban sprawl, because the "cypress" mulch for sale now days is referring to "cypress" as the color... not the type of wood in the mulch.
I think they just burn it all.

Although from 2021....interesting recs from UF.....( apologies if this has been posted before)


https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...Scx-vuQjwG6upp