Music: The Fuel for Plant Souls

Do your gardenias grooves to Gershwin or your marigolds melt to Mozart? Perhaps your peonies perk up to Pavarotti and your roses rock out to the Ramones? There is much speculation in the scientific community, but many gardeners swear music will revive wilting plants and urge flowers to bloom. In 1973, the revolutionary book The Sound of Music and Plants was written by Dorothy Retallack on scientific experiments involving plants and music.

Retallack performed her experiments at Colorado Women's College in Denver. She put the same species of plants in three separate laboratories. She played different types of music to each set and recorded the growth of each plant. The results were astounding. The plants that listened to music for three hours a day grew to double the size and and became twice as healthy in comparison to the plants to which no music was played. Another more surprising result was that the plants to whom music was played for eight hours a day died within two weeks.

On the other hand, she was also surprise to see the overdose of music. A plant that listened to music eight hours a day died in two weeks. Then Retallack performed an experiment of different nature. She played different type of music for each plant. While one plant listened to the rock music, another one listened to the soft and soothing numbers. This time also the results were surprising yet conclusive. The plant that listened to rock music became sickly small, while plants that listening to soft smoothing numbers grew healthily and had bigger size. Another interesting observation was that this plant grew towards the radio from which the music was being played.

Based on this experiment, many organizations embrace and practice the act of playing music for plants. These music-enthusiasts strongly suggest you carefully pick the type of music you choose to play to your plants. Playing positive music (oldies or easy-listening) will positively affect your plants. However, playing loud or disturbing music (rock, heavy-metal, or rap) will most likely be detrimental to your plants and may cause stunted or sick plants. Furthermore, if you decide to play music to your plants, you should limit the playing time. Like Dorothy Retallack showed in her earliest experiments, approximately three hours is an adequate time for exposing your plants to music. Any more sound exposure can be detrimental and possibly stunt the growth of your plants. Generally, plants have responded best to classical music, which is the main reason why many plant enthusiasts prefer playing Mozart, Bach, or Beethoven to more strenuous music.

Although music is not an absolutely proven factor in plant development, several studies, along with Dorothy Retallack's groundbreaking series of experiments, have aided the musical development theory. If you are interested in exploring this option with your own garden, consult The Sound of Music and Plants or other resources to ensure you expose your plants to the optimal type of music for the appropriate amount of time.