I CANNOT imagine playing War Pigs, Paranoid or Children of the Grave to my flowers, but it's what top horticulturalists are recommending.

TV gardener Chris Beardshaw told BBC Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time that research by horticultural students revealed that blasting them with Black Sabbath had worked a blooming treat.

In the same experiments, plants exposed to Sir Cliff Richard's songs had all died. There's a surprise.

Usually, it's Mozart and other classical dudes who are recommended for plants and, indeed, for milk-producing coos. But Sabbath outdid even Mo, with their raucous rock creating larger flowers more resistant to pests and disease. While the tests were limited, and sabotage was suspected in the Richard greenhouse, the results provide fertiliser for thought.

In the matter of music, we all bring bias to the table. I'd play sublime Swedish psych rockers Dungen to all plants, animals and persons needing a lift. You, perhaps, would subject your flora and fauna to the tender mercies of Madonna, Snoop Dogg or Stockhausen.

We all have our views, but it's odd that plants should react to music. Last time I looked, they didn't have earlobes. Perhaps we're talking about good vibrations, even exaltations (Lord save us from pop rhymes), picked up through their petals and stems.

Also noticeable in the experiment was the relative failure of silence to stimulate growth. I've often wondered if this was one reason why healthy plants I buy in supermarkets and other horticultural hellholes perish as soon as I plant them in my demesne. They miss the muzak, which I'm hardly in a position to provide outdoors in suburbia.

In the meantime, perhaps there's an opportunity to create a new musical genre here: heavy petal?