document updated 10 years ago, on Jul 28, 2014
I see several suggestions to water your garden with either distilled water, or with water that has been left out for 24 hours to degas. I think it's worth viewing from a skeptical lens.
are plants in general harmed by tap water?
Does anything in the tap water hurt most plants?
For a list of chemicals commonly found in tap water, see:
[1]
[2]
are specific plants harmed by tap water?
There are definitely a few plants that are harmed by tap water. So it's not possible to make the blanket statement that "tap water never hurts plants". However, it may still be possible to make the statement that "tap water doesn't hurt most plants".
- lucky bamboo (Dracaena brauni)
symptoms of plant harm
- chlorosis - a general yellowing of the leaves [2]
Among lay people, the term chlorosis has become mistakenly associated with chlorine, even though the words actually have nothing to do with each other. (a few people even use the meaningless term chloridosis)
Chlorosis happens when a plant has too little chlorophyll, not too much chlorine. The "chloro" in chlorophyll comes from its green appearance, and chlorophyll doesn't contain chlorine nor is it associated with chlorine in any way.