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By Pam Owen
Special to the Rappahannock News
Habitat for our native wildlife habitat starts beneath our feet, in the soil. Most native plants sink their roots in it, and many tiny animals make their home in it.
The Blue Ridge Mountains are one of the most biodiverse regions of America, and part of that diversity comes from the range of soils, climates, and elevations. In the mountain coves—remote areas on mountain slopes where the sides of mountain ranges fold inward and are well watered from higher streams—the soil is deep and fertile. In these coves grow dwarf iris, trumpet honeysuckle, dog hobble, columbine, and the
tains the soils are stretched thin over granite and much less fertile, yet other plants thrive there.
In Rappahannock County, we have a variety of soils, from the thin soil on rocky slopes to richer, deeper soils in the valleys, to the waterdrenched soil of our wetlands. Naturalizing property here requires knowledge of its soil makeup and choosing the plants that are naturally compatible. Whatever the soil content, there are plenty of native plants * that will be happy in it—from wild1 flowers, grasses, and sedges to shrubs and trees.
“The health of the soil is directly related to the health of the plants that grow in that soil, which directly affects the health of the animals and people that consume those plants,” said local soil expert Charlie Thornton. “Optimum soil quality is based on a balance between biological, chemical, and physical properties...air and water make up fifty percent of the ideal soil environment for nutrient exchange.”
Living in just a teaspoon of soil are hundreds of thousands of species and up to a billion individual organisms, from one-celled bacteria, to algae, fungi, and protozoa, to more complex creatures, such as nematodes (nonsegmented worms) and micro-arthropods, earthworms, small
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