Areas To Collect A Soil Test From.

What areas should I collect a Soil Test from?
A Soil Test should be collected from any discernible area of your total landscape that will require fertilization (or you think will require fertilization). Obviously the lawn would be treated different from the landscaped beds. But you may want to pull separate samples from the annuals, perennials, shrubs, etc. If there are any specialty type plantings like a rose garden you should treat it as a separate area and collect a sample. Do not forget the vegetable garden it should also be treated as a separate area.
Treat the lawn as an aggregate unless it has distinct areas that contain different turf types. Such as the front lawn is Bermuda grass and the back lawn is Centipede grass, then these should be treated differently and have separate samples.

Soil Test

Soil Test
Always start with a Soil Test. You need to know what you are working with. Most large landscape/lawncare companies this includes companies like Trugreen/Chemlawn (I will call them the Big Green) will tell you that this step is not needed. They will use excuses like “we treat a lot of the landscapes in this area and we know what we are doing” or “we did a soil test on this street a couple of years ago”. Without a soil test you do not know what your soil really needs, or more importantly does NOT need.
What your soil does NOT need, interesting concept. The Big Green maximizes their profit by treating every landscape the same. The Chicken Soup approach! A tank mixture of 1000 gallons rolls down the road and treats a slew of lawns, not necessarily based on what they need, but based on where they are located. Route Density!
What happens to the stuff your landscape does not need. It makes it way down the storm drain, it can bind with the soil, or could change up the pH. All three of these things are bad, bad for your landscape and bad for the ecosystem that we all live in.
A soil test will let you know what your landscape needs and what it does not need.