Practical Soil Assessments for Ecological Landscaping
This event confers 3 CEUs for AOLCPs
Organic and ecological landscaping is more than purchasing amendments or avoiding herbicides—it begins with building healthy soil. If you (or your clients) are concerned about weed pressure, erosion, drought stress, or long-term input costs, strengthening soil function is one of the most effective solutions. In this workshop, we’ll explore how soil health underpins successful landscapes, whether you’re managing properties professionally or stewarding a home garden. Facilitators will introduce practical tools and strategies to help you assess soil conditions and make more informed, site-specific decisions.
Designed to support professional skill development, this session builds participants’ capacity to evaluate soil physical and biological conditions using hands-on, field-based assessment methods. You’ll practice interpreting key indicators—such as compaction, water infiltration, aggregate stability, and microbial activity—and learn how to translate those observations into ecological landscaping and land management practices that improve resilience, plant performance, and long-term site health.
Throughout the afternoon, we will:
- Learn what to look for when making soil assessments, including visual indicators of soil structure, aggregation, and surface conditions
- Use simple field-based tools to evaluate soil physical characteristics such as water infiltration, aggregate stability (slake), and compaction (penetrometer, and discuss how these factors influence root growth, drainage, and erosion risk
- Understand how site hydrology interacts with soil structure and management practices to affect water movement and plant performance
- Explore biological indicators of soil health using tools such as microbial biomass measurements (microBIOMETER) alongside visual examples of soil microbiology through microscopic video observations
- Discover practical ways to integrate soil-centered, ecological practices into landscaping and land care work