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| During a cleaning of my patio, the contractor used a solution with chlorine bleach. Now my once beautiful Nikko hydrangea looks terrible. Some limbs are dying, the leaves are yellow and burned looking. Half of the blossoms have dried up into black fried globs.
Assuming the soil saturated with bleach is the problem, what is the fastest way to reverse the situation. My goal is to save the health of the shrub and if possible to restore it to looking healthy this summer. I have been told to use Ironite, Miracid (said to be slow worker), aluminum sulfate. Anyone's experience and/or expertise is so appreciated. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by gardengal48 PNW zone 8 (My Page) on Wed, Aug 1, 12 at 17:04
| Diluting the area with water is the best thing you can do - washing/leaching the chemical as far away from the plant roots as possible will hasten any chance of recovery. Chlorine bleach is extremely caustic and that is often of greater concern than a - temporary - change in pH. And FWIW, water mixing with chlorine (or the chlorine in chlorine bleach) forms hydrochloric acid and that will lower the soil pH. So I would skip the Ironite, Miracid (works faster than you might think) or the aluminum sulphate in favor of diluting the area thoroughly with water. |
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| While you can get both Hydrochloric Acid and Chlorine by reacting Hydrogen, Sodium Chloride, and water, I doubt that you would get Hydrochloric Acid simply by mixiing Chlorine Bleach in water. While the pH of any Chlorine Bleach solution depends somewhat on the mixture, the pH is very alkaline, around pH 8 or 12. Whether what that contractor washed off your patio was enough to change the soils pH can only be determined by a good, reliable soil test, but if that Hydrangea was growing quite well before this that is a likely cause of the problem. Perhaps the people at your local University of Tennessee Cooperative Extgension Service would have some ideas about what to do if this Hydrangea can be saved. |
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- Posted by toxcrusadr (My Page) on Thu, Aug 2, 12 at 10:56
| I too agree with the dilution approach. I would water it heavily every day, and it may help to add some compost tea and/or a bit of soluble fertilizer. If there is any bleach left - and it reacts rapidly so there may not be - it will be chewed up by the organic matter in compost tea. If this was regular household bleach, NaClO, I believe the reaction with organic matter (represented as CH2O) would most likely yield water, carbon dioxide and NaCl, or table salt, which does not affect pH at all. |
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- Posted by toxcrusadr (My Page) on Thu, Aug 2, 12 at 12:09
| Bleach left to itself in water can decompose into Cl2 (chlorine gas), but in water that would immediately react to form HCl, so gardengal is right about that. But I wonder if bleach solution added to soil would have time enough to form much chlorine, since it would react vigorously with organic matter. However, and this was news to me, Wiki says that household bleach - if that is even what was used here - can have sodium hydroxide in it: "The properties of household bleach that make it effective for removing stains also result in cumulative damage to organic fibers, such as cotton, and the useful lifespan of these materials will be shortened with regular bleaching. The sodium hydroxide (NaOH) that is also found in household bleach (as noted later) causes fiber degradation as well." NaOH of course is alkaline, so 1) it may swamp out any HCl formation; 2) it may persist in soil resulting in a high pH. Hence the instructions to add acid. I don't know how you'd know without pH testing the soil. But NO MATTER WHAT, bleach, acid or alkali can be washed away with lots of water. It's the solution to pollution in this case. If others have more authoritative info on how to deal with this particular problem, including whoever recommended adding acid, by all means go with who you trust. I'm just a chemist shooting from the hip. |
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- Posted by albert_135 Sunset 2 or 3 (My Page) on Thu, Aug 2, 12 at 14:29
| I wonder about using one of the products used to remove chlorine and chloride products from aquarium water. I've no clue if this will work, just something that leaped into my head while reading the above. |
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