Do all wood preservatives damage plants?
And what about (oil) paint?

The "expert" at my local Builders' Provider
asserts that all preservatives are bad for plants ...

--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

Timothy Murphy wrote:
Do all wood preservatives damage plants?
And what about (oil) paint?

When properly dry and hardened they shouldn't do any harm, especially
modern ones, which have to be formulated so that teething babies aren't
harmed by noshing them.

The "expert" at my local Builders' Provider
asserts that all preservatives are bad for plants ...

I'd guess that your 'expert' is mostly right, so if you are using (say)
tanalised wood, or anything that's creosoted or tarred, put a layer of
black polythene (builders' membrane, not dustbin bags!) between the wood
and the timber.

--
Rusty

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 14:47:04 +0100, Timothy Murphy
wrote:

Do all wood preservatives damage plants?
And what about (oil) paint?

The "expert" at my local Builders' Provider
asserts that all preservatives are bad for plants ...

I used to use Cuprinol water-based products both on my own fences and
my parents' and used a sprayer to apply them (a proper mains one, not
the battery operated ones you can get now which, in my opinion, are
rubbish). Invariably plants got sprayed, in some cases fairly heavily,
but never seemed to suffer as a result.

Having replaced my fences with heavier, pressure treated ones, I now
use an oil-based treatment every 4 years - again sprayed on but during
the winter. Herbaceous borders simply get covered with a sheet of
polythene and shrubs get wrapped as I have found that the oil based
stuff can damage them.