An Experiment You Can Try

Discussion in 'Crops & Gardens' started by Don Alaska, Jul 17, 2018.

  1. Don Alaska

    Don Alaska Supreme Member
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    Those of you who grow flowers can try this experiment. While researching magnesium fertilizers, I found a paper that stated that magnesium is required by most flowers to generate color pigments (as well as chlorophyll) and that is has been well-documented that roses become more vivid in color when fed magnesium. This has been tested in many flowers, but far from all. The author suggested that gardeners try adding a tablespoon per gallon of Epsom Salts to the water that is used on half your flowers and leave the salts out of the other half to see if the color changes with the addition of magnesium. My wife tried it on her Osteospermum, and it appears to make the colors brighter and more vivid on those.
     
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  2. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    I have been putting Epsom salts on our flowers as well as the tomatoes, and other garden plants. Since I have been putting it on all. Of them, I have not been able to see what difference it made ; however, we have been getting more bloom from the roses this year, and they DO seem brighter than usual.
    I buy the Epsom salt in bags from the dollar store or grocery store, and then , before it is going to rain, I go out and sprinkle some around the plants by hand, and the rain soaks it into the ground. I have been doing that about once a month.
     
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  3. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    @Don Alaska My grandfather occasionally ate a bit of Epsom Salts!
    Frank
     
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  4. Betty Jones

    Betty Jones Veteran Member
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    what was his reason for eating the epsom salt----i know you can soak in it for muscle aches but i didnt know you could drink it
     
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  5. Holly Saunders

    Holly Saunders Supreme Member
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    I'll give that a try on our roses in the back garden ... although I think if they were any brighter this year they might be luminescent

    [​IMG]
     
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  6. Shirley Martin

    Shirley Martin Supreme Member
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    @Betty Jones , Epson Salt can be used as a laxative. I don't know why @Frank Sanoica 's grandfather ate it. People do some strange things sometimes. ;)

    I use it on my tomatoes to prevent blossom end rot. I'm going to try it on my petunias.
     
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  7. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    @Betty Jones
    I believe it was once rather widely-used as a laxative. In small quantities, of course.
    Frank
     
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  8. Don Alaska

    Don Alaska Supreme Member
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    Not exactly on topic, but I once knew a doctor who used Epsom Salts as a cure for dysentery. His theory was that it would flush the toxins and bacteria out quickly instead of over days or weeks. It seemed to work, but you would have to be on the lookout for dehydration during treatment, as it was similar to a colonoscopy prep.
     
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  9. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    @Don Alaska
    Interesting concept. Dysentery of course is a broad term, covering intestinal inflammation caused by both (or either) bacteria and parasites. When my brother in law, aged 16, revealed to us (my wife & I) that he had been having bloody stools for several weeks, his condition was already grave. He had gone downstate hunting with a friend some weeks earlier, and they had drunk water seeping from the walls of a limestone quarry. I immediately suspected dysentery.......(during the interim between the hunting trip, and telling us about the bleeding, he (and my wife) had lost their parents to a murder-suicide. Our family doctor, quite wise, asked Rick if he had recently had any kind of traumatic experience. Rick described the deaths. The doc examined him rectally, prescribed an anti-dysentery drug, took me aside and said he suspected ulcerative colitis. If the medication had no effect within a short time, he said, unless you have medical insurance coverage for the boy, take him to Cook County Hospital.

    We did. On his 16th. birthday, November 28, 1967. After many ups and downs, much steroid therapy, prednisone, prednisolone, methylprednisone, and having gone from his robust 180 lbs. down to close to 100, the kid started coming back. Hospital discharged him on Mar. 31, 4 months later. During ensuing years, he became strong again, a big and most intelligent Polish young man (graduated high school 2nd. out of over 700, that after having missed 4 months of classes!), but had several minor relapses. On 26 Nov. 1975 in the evening, he left a trail of bloody feces inadvertantly across the floor from his bedroom to the bathroom (he was then living with us). I called paramedics who took him to Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital. Next day, a Thursday, we visited him, finding him in good spirits, considering. Following day, Friday, Nov. 28, 1975, hospital called me that Rick had died. Nurse looked in on him, he waved, and ten minutes later, he was dead, on his 25th. birthday. My wife was devastated, having lost her parents at age 20, then her brother at age 28. Those events were primarily responsible for us getting divorced.

    The hospital autopsy claimed pulmonary embolism. I had my doubts, being the ever cynical and paranoid doubting thomas........hospital admitted a very sick young man, no insurance, indigent relatives, a scenerio possibly costing the institution a large amount of money..........a quick 10cc injection of air, and,.........

    I suggested to my wife an alternate private autopsy. She declined. He was gone, that was all that mattered to her.

    I have written this here, @Don Alaska, because I suspect you have the background and knowledge to fully understand the story, and it's consequences. I once asked you, suspecting you have a medical background, about your career, but you did not choose to go there. That's OK. I'm certain you understand every implication of my post here.
    Frank
     
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  10. Don Alaska

    Don Alaska Supreme Member
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    I understand the issues there, Frank, and I can only hope that it was incompetence, not deliberate mistreatment. Real dysentery appears in two forms, Parasitic and Bacterial. The treatments (drugs) for each of these is different. True dysentery could have been diagnosed by a laboratory in a few days, if not sooner. I suspect your wife's brother had something more serious than dysentery, but no idea what. It could have been many different things and imaging studies and laboratory studies should have been able to narrow things down and endoscopy of some kind should have been able to make a definitive diagnosis. I am sorry for your, and your wife's family's, loss.
     
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  11. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    I don't expect that would be the case. Having been a paramedic for twenty years, I am pretty familiar with the doctors and nurses who work in hospitals and, while laziness or incompetence sometimes plays a part, the medical staff generally don't know or care who is paying their bills and who isn't. I have seen extraordinary efforts made to save people who were here from Mexico illegally, or who were clearly not in a position to pay their bills, and I can't imagine a doctor or a nurse going along with such a practice if it were ordered.
     
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  12. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    @Don Alaska
    Perhaps I didn't explain properly. There was no dysentery; ulcerative colitis, then treatable with only a few drugs, mainly steroids and/or opium. Today, the disease is curable generally. The cause I think is still under debate.
    Frank
     
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