Blade Boss · Flight school for your lawn
Same lawn, two years apart.Only 19% of Long Islanders with a lawn have tested their soil.Sixty seconds. Your actual dirt. Your soil from the USDA survey and the first thing to fix, in order.
Type your address. Your Scan starts you with the order.Your free Scan reads the soil under your address. Siena Research Institute for NYSDEC, 2025.Chris's own lawn on Long Island. Left: July 2022. Right: October 2024. How fast a lawn turns depends on where it starts.
- ✓County soil surveyHaven loam
- ~Soil pH5.1 · estimate
- ✓Hardiness zone7b
Type your address. See the soil under your lawn and what to fix first.
- USDA Web Soil Survey
- NOAA station network
- PRISM climate data
- Satellite imagery
Chris's own lawn on Long Island. Left: July 2022. Right: October 2024. How fast a lawn turns depends on where it starts.
Reading your lot
Surveyed Estimated: confirm with a lab test Unavailable Patent Pending
Finding · estimated from survey
Every plan starts from the soil survey at your address. A lab test sharpens it.A lab test is your green light for phosphorus. In New York, phosphorus fertilizer can go on an established lawn only when a soil test shows the lawn needs it. A lab test also gives your real pH, so the plan stops estimating.A university lab soil test costs $10 to $25 (Penn State, UMass, Rutgers and CCE Dutchess fee pages, Oct 2026). Full Panel has a person read two of your reports a year and check them against your plan.
Most of what you've done was right. It was just in the wrong order. Pick what you want by June, and your plan lines up the rest.
So what do you want this lawn to look like this year? Tap one, and see where it sits in your plan's order.
There's an order to this.
Start where it's marked.Your checklist is ready.
Start where it's marked.Preflight complete.
Here's what your lawn needs, in the order it needs it.
Everything you've done up to this point, you've either done correctly in the wrong order, or wasted money on a surface that isn't ready to receive seed.
Save this scan
Don't lose your lot
Creates your free Blade Boss account. No password, no card.
This creates a free account and saves your address, approximate coordinates and this soil profile to it, so we can show you your own lot and follow up about Blade Boss. Nothing is sold. Ask us and we'll delete the account and everything in it. How we handle it.
We don't make or sell fertilizer. The plan picks by what your lawn needs, not by brand. Soil data courtesy of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Web Soil Survey. Hardiness zone derived from PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University data; this is not the official USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Satellite imagery © Mapbox © Maxar. Survey values describe the mapped soil unit at this location and are not a substitute for a laboratory soil test of your lawn.
Where every line comes from
What the Scan reads
Every line in your readout comes from a public record, and each one is marked surveyed or measured, estimated or unavailable. When a source has nothing for your address, the line says so. We never fill the gap with a guess.
- Parcel imagery
- Satellite imagery of your lot from Mapbox and Maxar.
- Hardiness zone
- Derived from PRISM Climate Group data at Oregon State University. It is not the official USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map.
- Growing season so far
- Growing degree days above 50°F so far this season, from NOAA station data gridded to your address, compared with a typical year at the same spot. Measured.
- Soil temperature right now
- Modeled for your address at about 2.4 inches deep from weather data. Estimated: a soil thermometer pushed into your lawn gives you a measured number.
- Soil series, texture and drainage
- The soil USDA mapped under your address, with its texture and drainage class, from the NRCS Web Soil Survey.
- Organic matter, holding capacity and pH
- Survey estimates for the mapped soil, not measurements of your yard. Decades of lime, fertilizer and rain move all three, so a lab test of your lawn replaces them.
- How long lime takes
- Ohio State University Extension, Lime and the Home Lawn (HYG-4026, 2021): "it may be several months before the soil pH changes." West Virginia University Extension, Lawn Liming (2015): "the movement of lime through the soil may take up to two years per 2 inches." Both split a large application into two.
Long Island soils
What's under most lawns on Long Island
Long Island's soils formed in glacial deposits: outwash plains, moraines, and a silty cap over sand and gravel. USDA's Official Series Descriptions name the series below. They run from excessively drained sands to well drained silt loams, and every one of them is acid in its native state.
Low pH is very common on Long Island. (Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County)
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Plymouth
Its typical profile was described at Heckscher State Park, Suffolk County.
- Surface
- Loamy sand
- Drainage
- Excessively drained
- Native acidity
- Extremely acid through strongly acid
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Carver
Long Island and Massachusetts, on outwash plains and moraines.
- Surface
- Loamy sand through coarse sand
- Drainage
- Excessively drained
- Native acidity
- Extremely acid through moderately acid, except where it is limed
-
Riverhead
Its typical profile was described in the Town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County. Found on outwash plains.
- Surface
- Sandy loam, fine sandy loam or loam
- Drainage
- Well drained
- Native acidity
- Extremely acid to moderately acid unless limed
-
Haven
Its typical profile was described in the Town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County. Loamy soil over sand and gravel outwash.
- Surface
- Loam, silt loam or very fine sandy loam
- Drainage
- Well drained
- Native acidity
- Very strongly acid through moderately acid
-
Hempstead
Known only from central Nassau County: one area of 12,000 to 15,000 acres, farmland turned to housing since 1940.
- Surface
- Silt loam or very fine sandy loam
- Drainage
- Well drained
- Native acidity
- Moderately acid to very strongly acid
Native means before anyone limed it. These readings describe undisturbed soil. Your lawn's pH is whatever decades of lime, fertilizer and rain have made it, and only a soil test of your lawn measures that. The Scan's pH line is a survey estimate for the mapped soil, not your yard.
Why the series matters. Sandy series like Plymouth and Carver drain fast and hold little, so they do better with water and feed in smaller, more frequent doses. Loams and silt loams like Haven and Riverhead hold more between waterings.
Many Long Island lots are mapped as Urban land, where building moved the native soil. The Scan tells you when yours is, and estimates each line from the nearest mapped soil instead.
Source: USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Official Series Descriptions. Each series name links to its record. Read October 22, 2026.
Saving your lawn
- Securing your scan
- Address saved
- Soil survey attached
- Creating your account