Is Pressure treated wood good for gardening?

Aparna Sharma
2 min readMar 7, 2017

Gardening is a passion that many of us share. This hobby drives us to care for our plants more than anything else and we like to invest a considerable amount of time everyday doing this. If you have a big backyard, you can convert it into a beautiful garden with the right flowers and plants. Until a few years back, there were concerns regarding the use of Pressure treated wood because of the presence of chromate copper arsenate. It was believed to lead to arsenic poisoning of garden plants. However, over the years there has been a drastic change in the way garden beds were manufactured and CCA was removed no longer used for treating wood.

Let us have a look at the use of pressure treated wood for gardening:

1. Pressure treated wood now has the presence of alkaline copper and copper azole but no arsenic, which makes it safe for garden use. These micronutrients act as insecticide and fungicide.

2. If you already have pressure treated wood being used in garden, then there is no need to panic as the arsenic that is leached in the soil, will not affect the roots of the plant. This is mainly possible is the gardeners have used phosphorous in generous quantities while turning their soil.

3. You can segregate pressure-treated wood by coating the inside of a garden bed with heavy plastic to avert oozing of chemicals from the wood into the soil.

You can use red cedar or redwood instead of pressure treated wood to avoid any damage to your soil. They are decay-resistant too. Cinder blocks, sandbags and bricks also work really well to create a wall for your garden bed, without causing any damage to your beautiful flowers and organic plants, visit us at www.flowersandyou.com. Order online flowers in Delhi

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