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It turns out that there may be some truth to the belief that talking to plants helps them grow, but not for the reasons you may think. According to ScienceNet, plants need carbon dioxide to grow, and when you talk to a plant, you breath on it, giving it an extra infusion of CO2. However, for this to have any real effect on your favorite fern, you would have to spend several hours a day conversing with it in close quarters. The idea of talking to plants was introduced in 1848, when Dr. Gustav Theodor Fechner, a German professor, suggested the idea in his book Nanna (Soul-life of Plants). He believed that plants were capable of emotions, just like humans, and you could promote healthy growth by showering your plants with attention and talk. In his book Training of the Human Plant, Luther Burbank, a renowned botanist and inventor of the Burbank potato (better known as the Idaho potato), wrote that plants may not understand the spoken word, but they were capable of telepathically understanding the meaning of speech. And in 1970, New York
dentist George Milstein released Music to Grow Plants By, a record of songs to play for your plants. In fact, a few studies seemed to confirm that classical or soothing music would benefit plants, while loud aggressive music, like rock music, could cause them to wither and die. If you are a proponent of the theory, there are several records out there to help your houseplants be happy and healthy. Ultimately, there is little concrete evidence that talking to your plants or playing music for them will help them grow, but we say if you enjoy it, by all means, do
it. Just don't let the neighbors catch you!
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