I am new to gardening, but the books I've read seem to indicate that soil type is important. One book I have tells you whether each plant likes clay, sand or loam.

I am still new to this site. Where is the soil type captured in the plant database? I figure it must be there and I'm just missing it?

Hi Gary. Perhaps this will help

http://garden.org/learn/articl...

Gary, that is a great question, and I was going to ask if this could be added to the database for each plant. It's an important thing to know!

I think that is a good idea; our database has soil pH preference; water preference and sun/shade but nothing about soil type.

Gary ...

I think this is such an important idea that I sent you an acorn.

Welcome to NGA and welcome to gardening

Should we check with @dave to see if this is do-able?

thanks for all of the responses. we should ask Dave about it.

do you think there should be just one soil type per plant, as in "preferred soil type = sand"?

I'm thinking that there should be two database fields. One would be "preferred soil type". the other would be "acceptable soil types". So, for example, if a plant preferred sand, but could grow in loam, then the acceptable types would be sand and loam. I would think having those two database fields would give gardeners everything they need to make informed decisions. do you agree?

once these fields are available in the database Dave could run some sort of promotion to try to get everyone to help populate them.

Gary, that's another great suggestion, and it is exactly what I'd like to see myself.