Garden melody: Michael Leapman tests out some tunes on his seedlings. Photo: Carla Molden.

Do veg thrive on Verdi, will flowers blossom if they hear Handel? As The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra release a CD to encourage growth in the garden, Michael Leapman finds out if plants really do love the sound of music.

By Michael Leapman
The Telegraph
05 Apr 2011

Excerpt:

In 2003 some more serious South Korean researchers undertook a large project concentrating on two staples of the oriental diet, cucumber and Chinese cabbage. They played to them what they described as “green” sounds, combining classical music with noises that the plants might be expected to encounter in real life, such as bird calls and rushing water. They discovered that the effect of sound waves was to make the cabbages absorb more oxygen than those that had been raised in silence, with a consequently beneficial effect on their protein levels; but they appeared to have no effect on the cucumbers.

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