This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

Re: Summer reading: The Garden of Evil

Can someone explain to me what happens to the plants that have sopped up all the toxins?
Nancy Stedman

At 04:12 PM 6/13/2005 -0500, you wrote:
Sounds like a fascinating book that I will have to add to the pile of "must reads" growing beside my bed.
 
I've seen the power of bioremediation and phytoremediation firsthand and can attest their value and effectiveness.  Several times there were oil spills in Galveston Bay (south of Houston, TX) when I lived there.  Texas A&M's oceanographic research arm spread oil-eating microbes on the waters and along the sensitive surrounding marshlands.  Nearly 98 percent of the oil was broken down by the bacteria.  The Aggies also experiment with plants such as sunflowers and crude members of the brassica family to cleanse polluted soils of lead, nickel and zinc.  They aren't the first.  Many researchers have done the same.  In Philadelphia, inner city lots loaded with lead and other heavy metals were effectively cleansed by sunflowers so housing could be built safely on the ground.  Examples abound. 
 
This is a field that holds much promise and one we garden writers should be touting.  For example, if you want to garden on polluted ground (many inner city lots are loaded with heavy metals like the Philadelphia example above), it's wise to plant sunflowers and radishes thickly the first year, harvest them when fully mature and destroy the plant material.  Both plants have very deep tap roots and extensive feeder systems near the surface.  They gather and bind up heavy metals, storing them in their leaves and stems.
Doreen Howard
 
 

_______________________________________________
gardenwriters mailing list
gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/gardenwriters

GWL has searchable archives at:
http://www.hort.net/lists/gardenwriters

Send photos for GWL to gwlphotos@hort.net to be posted
at: http://www.hort.net/lists/gwlphotos

Post gardening questions/threads to
"Gardenwriters on Gardening" <gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org>

For GWL website and Wiki, go to
http://www.ibiblio.org/gardenwriters

_______________________________________________
gardenwriters mailing list
gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/gardenwriters

GWL has searchable archives at:
http://www.hort.net/lists/gardenwriters

Send photos for GWL to gwlphotos@hort.net to be posted
at: http://www.hort.net/lists/gwlphotos

Post gardening questions/threads to
"Gardenwriters on Gardening" <gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org>

For GWL website and Wiki, go to
http://www.ibiblio.org/gardenwriters
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index