Chatting with plants may not be crazy

I have a confession to make: I talk to my plants.

The tender green seedlings emerge from broadcast rows in trays that line the benches near the windows of my living room. The stout baby plants stretch eagerly to the grow lights above. Some list hopefully toward the spring sunshine piercing through the windowpanes.

Every morning I greet my plants with pleasant tidings, I tell them they look beautiful and encourage them to grow well and stay healthy. Every night I wish them the best before I turn off their lights.

Madness, you say? Maybe not.

One of the most interesting and exciting discoveries in plant science during the 20th century involves a finding by a scientist named Cleave Baxter in February 1966 in a small laboratory off Times Square in New York City. Baxter ran a polygraph laboratory called The Baxter School of Lie Detection. Late one night when he was preparing to leave for the evening, Baxter noticed a plant in his office required water.

The man knew water moved through plants through the process of osmosis. He wondered how long it took a plant in his office to receive water in its leaves from the time he watered its roots. He watered the plant and connected some polygraph electrodes to one leaf. These electrodes were used to measure electrical resistance and revealed to Baxter the brain activity – thoughts and moods – of human patients in the lab.

The electrodes were set up to print on paper a readout of the activity going on within the plant. Baxter expected to see an upward line, indicating excitement – in this case as a result of increasing moisture. In Baxter’s line of business, an upward line was equivalent to a lie.

But what the scientist found was very different. The line on the graph went downward, which indicated the equivalent of peace and serenity.

Furthermore, the line was not straight as Baxter expected. It was jagged, with small ups and downs, a response similar to what he was used to finding when he connected electrodes to a living, breathing human being.

Baxter was intrigued by this finding. He decided to get a match and burn a leaf of the plant. Before he could act, Baxter’s recording devices showed an upward leap in the polygraph line. This dramatic reaction was comparable to a readout that would illustrate human apprehension, had the electrodes been attached to a person.

Had the plants read his thoughts? Baxter continued with a line of experiments that showed the plants had indeed read his thoughts! His findings were published in the February 1969 issue of National Wildlife and were revealed in the 1973 best seller “The Secret Life of Plants.”

Further experiments traced a fascinating response in plants to seemingly unconnected events in their midst. Plants responded negatively to live shrimp being dropped into boiling water and to insects being killed. The plants also responded to Baxter’s thoughts whether he was near or far. He would attach the polygraph machine to the leaves of plants and leave the building for a walk.

Some distance from his office, Baxter would arbitrarily decide to return to his office and would send his plants a positive, encouraging thought. At that time he would check his watch and record the time. Examination of the readout upon his return, he discovered an excited spike in the chart at the very moment he decided to return to the office. However, the times when Baxter decided in advance what time to come home, there was no excited spike in the readout. No plant reaction told Baxter his plants already knew. They had read his thoughts!

So the adage “Be careful what you wish for” may have special meaning to we who garden. Think well of your plants, encourage them with your thoughts, think of them as beautiful, and perhaps they will grow to be so. Seedlings, like children, require special encouragement and coddling. As you sow those garden seeds, bless them with your thoughts, feast upon them with your eyes and keep your thoughts and words kindly.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, 512 North Ridge Road, Montville 04941 or e-mail dianagc@midcoast.com. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.