11 replies to this topic

[Cakes]

Lichens look like Very interesting growths for lots of reasons. I'm kinda thinking about their cultivation possibilities.

QUOTE from lichen com ~
"To form a new lichen, these fungal spores need to capture new photosynthetic partners after they germinate. Some apparently steal them from other lichens. Others have the good luck to happen upon appropriate partners. In all probability, most just perish alone."

So it sounds like one of the main reasons lichen grow so slowly is that they just don't have enough symbiotic partners available. It seems they want 'pond scum', aka blue-green algae, the guy who built your atmosphere and oil reserves, cyanobacteria Call Him Chloroplast himself.

whoa gardening is trippi

It could be that lichen need a foliar spray of blue-green algae to have all their spores survive. walla? lots of lichen growth? Paint damage or whatever on monoliths could be seeded with new spores and covered in accelerated growths of lichen maybe.

if you can't out-grow the paint, break it down?
Many bacteria are being used to remove heavy metals and such from ore or toxic dumps. It's a widespread industrial practice. Could they be used to destabilize the heavy metals and such that make paints so impermeable?

continue on here to the flower area where we have the source of many dyes in the world. If you canna beat them canna cover them with color? Lichens are often used as dye and you could make a spray (made from the kind of lichen you're trying to match) walla? tag the lichen with a paint made from the lichen itself? or would we be tagging back at (human) nature in a kind of circle. ha ha Taggers are just making their own monuments... and we are sure that the monument is supposed to look this other way...

Maybe we all should just get some stoneworking tools of our own...

i'd make a tablet saying gardening rocks

[Cakes]

Let's farm this question out a bit~

AllExperts.com is the oldest & largest free Q&A service on the Internet, let's ask their volunteer Labman, he's a biochemist and safety expert at a paint factory.

Subject-   Non-toxic paint remover?

Question-   I have been thinking about the issue of removing paint from ancient monoliths. Some of the stones are covered in lichens however. Do you know of paint removal methods that would preserve the lichen?

i have thought of applying lime or bacteria (like the ones used to remove heavy metals from slag?)

Do you know if these might work?

Do you have any other ideas?

Answer-   The lime might work on the old, oil base paints. I doubt it would touch the newer latexes or spray can stuff. Lime can also burn plants in direct contact. You could try vegetable oil. The cheapest stuff may be on the shelf at the grocery store. You may find the traditional linseed oil at the hardware, but it may be more expensive and work no better. Put is on, and give it time to work. Even it may kill vegetation saturated with it.

[Cakes]

Cakes   Do you know (if so, could you please list) the names of the elements we may contending with in today's paints when it comes to the issue of their removal or neutralizing?

Speaking of neutralizing, can paint have it's color removed through some process?

Labman   The chemical elements in the binder are mostly going to be carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. The binder is what holds the pigments to the substrate. The structure is important when it comes to removing the paint. Much of the modern paint resins are acrylic or styrenic polymers with long chains of carbon chains. It is difficult to break the polymers, and most of the things that dissolve or at lest swell them, are toxic and volatile. The oil will attack most of them. Of course, it will soak into the rock leaving oil stains, but will eventually degrade.

Some of the color comes from the more stable inorganic chemicals. Little can be done with them. Others use organic colors which may have already faded in the sun. Not sure how to accelerate that. Even if you did, it might leave it white.

Cakes   Thanks Labman!

[Cakes]

Asking around really pays off sometimes. Labman sounds like a nice guy too.

I have high hopes for the oil solution.

It sounded like such a good idea,  I decided to try it myself.

I used the acrylic variety of paint that Labman said was one of the toughest to deal with, plus the paint I used has a primer AND an enamel in it (it's appliance paint in a spray can). It's white.

The stone I used is a very permeable volcanic specimen. It's a dark brick red.

Looked like a tough test to me.

I am excited so I tested as soon as the heavily applied paint looked dry
(approx 2 1/2 hours).

After one quick application and rinse,
the paint on the rock noticably lightened;

and better yet, the paint on the moss came off immeadiately and completely.

too good to be true, it was just too good to be true and i automatically did it again_

okay, technical notation time. I'm using moss here and not lichen. My paint hasn't had years to set up either (it hasn't had time to really get hard). I did gently agitate the surface of the moss with a plastic brush when i applied the oil and water (i agitated the surface of the moss for less than a second).

The second time I tried this test I massively soaked the moss in paint.
massively, just to be sure
I let it dry only one hour this time but the paint came off with no problem.

I wanna go party now but first,
details details
We used horticultural oil. These oils are used on plants to control insects and diseases (work great btw). They are quite safe but they can act like suntan lotion for plants if it is a Really sunny day. If you are unsure if it's Really sunny, then you can try applying the "140 Rule".

how to do the "140 Rule"

-Measure the temperature
--use the fahrenheit scale
---convert from celsius if necessary
----write it down or remember it.

-Measure the humidity level
--you can find this number at weather.com
---example: a sunny day in California can be 60% humidity
----write it down or remember it

Add the two numbers together

temperature in fahrenheit + humidity level

If the total is 140 or more, then use the oil during a cooler part of the day (perhaps early evening).

There's not a big danger of sunburn for vegetation usually but no use taking chances with lichen we like. Actually, i've used this particular oil on my own plants before at rates that exponentially exceeded (1 pt oil/2 pts water) the manufacturer's recommendations (see below) and have observed absolutely no slowing of the growth rates.

For this paint removal project, the horticultural oil manufacturer's recommendations for oil application worked just fine to remove acrylic appliance enamel paint with built in primer from a small, dark green, hairy moss growth 1/3in / .8cm in diameter and having hairs 1/4in / .6cm in heigth.

i mixed 'ORTHO' brand Volck Oil Spray
at the (recommended) rate of
5 tablespoons / 7.5 centiliters per gallon of water.

I liberally poured it on the painted moss.

I let it soak in for 3 seconds.

I gently agitated it with a medium firm plastic bristled brush for 1 second (the kind of brush with a handle used for scrubbing dinner plates) Rubbing with a finger does just as well as a brush, except for the very hairiest, deepest part of the moss, then it is best to use a brush.

After agitating the area, i poured more oil/water solution on the moss to rinse the paint off.

After removing the paint, if further rinsing is desired, a solution of liquid dishwashing soap and water can be used.

and after that, if further rinsing is desired, plain water

plant-safe soap recipe
1/2 teaspoon / 1.5ml dishwashing soap per cup of water
Don't be afraid, plants like a little soap. You can even put it in with the oil too, I did this and it worked better than the oil and water alone. Soap also has nutrients plants like.

If you are unsure about any of this, but still like the idea, try it on just a few growths or some paint of your own and then wait a few days (or ask them) to see how they feel. Most sunburns, toxicities or nute imbalances in plants will show up within 24 hours.

speaking of~
Do any of y'all know how long lichen survive under paint? I actually don't know much about lichen; there are probably all kinds of things I haven't considered yet.

and speaking of knowing things~
you can nominate Labman for "Expert of the Month" and/or volunteer to be an expert yourself.

[Cakes]

good news!

i've tested the horticultural oil on four different kinds of lichen and they all survived with flying colors!

[Cakes]

POSTED by johnruss

QUOTE:
I worked at a National Park in New Hampshire, Saint Gaudens . He had some beautiful gardens and walks. One of the walks had steps with moss and Lichens but needed work. the work being completed removed the moss and lichens. However the mason who did the work mixed up some water and cow manure and painted this on the steps and not instantly but within a year the age ,ie lichens and moss, was coming back to the steps. Don't know why the solution worked but it did.

The post was part of a thread i have at the birdforum net and there have been other responses to it but i'll also share the post i was able to make in response to johnruss' input

Thanks, johnruss, that's interesting to hear about the manure. From your report, it sounds like the craftsman didn't even feel a need for the inclusion of lichen spores in his mix. He was familiar enough with his medium as to feel confident the lichen would easily repopulate if only given the tools tu do sow.

ha ha ha
i just realized whathappened in my life because of the story you shared. yea untu you dude, we just proved the story of how to cultivate lichen Big Time.

the lichen have overtaken the retaining wall in back of my house this last year. i've kind of marveled at it a bit but just now i considered the fact that i grew a bunch of organic herbs in pots next to that wall (there's still a few pots of soil out there).

i bet those pots of soil and organisms seeded that wall.

This house has been here for 27+ years and there are no old lichen on that wall like there are on the thousands of encrusted rocks down in the cow pastures. Actually, it's billions of rocks (a volcano exploded next door).

whoa~! Yea~!
lichen.com was right. They said that the main reason lichen have trouble reproducing is because they don't get hooked up with the proper companions as often as they might.

The propagation techniques aren't actually unknown, it's just that the literature so far seems pretty much confined to observations made by the guys with microscopes. they are like you Silver, they can name the bacteria and the mycelliac adolescent or whatever but they haven't got around to the manure and such (the large scale field trials), the only study I've read so far, and it was relatively recent, the guys were strapping, so as not to harm the leaves, Bless their little scientific Hearts {Happy Valentine's Day All Of You} anyway, they were strapping actual microscope slides to the leaves of plants in the jungle somewhere. Left the slides on the leaves for year and concluded that lichens could be cultivated.

bless those hardworking Farmer's hearts too, thy know the tech even though they don't have the microscopes and they taught their kids, who grew up to be Craftsmen.

instead of Craftschildren?

ha ha

anyway, i'm getting a lichen mural~!
and i have something to post at t3h STONEPAGES

thanks Guys~!

[Cakes]

http://news.yahoo.co...teenagegraffiti

this was a link to a story about the kind of art found in caves. the story said that much of the art drawn by "cavemen" could probably be attributed to "caveteenagers" rather than men. the scientists had based that decision on the subject matter of the art and similar clues.

[Cakes]

p.s.~ I forgot to mention that the oil I used did not stain the rock like Labman feared it might...

good luck with your caretaking efforts of all types!

[Cakes]

The reason this thread got written is kind of a funny story.

I was thinking of the Rolling Stones one day and that is how I found this site. yup, rock music rolled me in here and once I was here, I learned of the problem with the paint and monolithic stones and the need for protecting the ancient growths. I was thinking of the Rolling Stones because I was writing a text on how to grow plants and wanted to include a fun link with the topic of rock fertilizers.

[shiny]

Hi Cakes...............This'll probably surprise you..............


   http://www.24hourmus...n/ART27818.html







    

[Cakes]

hey shiny! that's a sweet story. and you are right. i did not know he did those things.

Quote

A ROLLING STONE GATHERS TREASURE...

As a former member of the Rolling Stones Bill Wyman may seem to be an unlikely archaeologist, but his latest book ‘Bill Wyman’s Treasure Islands’ explores his love of metal detecting and uncovering lost treasures.

...

In recent years Bill has been involved with the Portable Antiquities Scheme, a government funded initiative that helps people to share their finds and find out more about them.

He said: “I think that it’s a great scheme because it’s finally united detectorists with archaeologists. There was always enmity there before and in recent years it’s become much more co-effective."

“I think it’s beneficial for everybody because now detectorists can guide archaeologists onto sites which they didn’t know about before and the archaeologists can do a very thorough job.”
...
While living in the South of France, Bill also developed an interest in astronomy and art and has previously written a book on Marc Chagall.

These hobbies may seem unusual for someone who was once in one the world’s greatest rock and roll bands but Bill is keen to end the myth that history and metal detecting are just for older people.

“A lot of the public think archaeology is for anoraks and it’s a boring old subject. The reason that older people are detectorists is because they have got more time to do it,” he added.

“What I always try to tell people is that there are masses and masses of young people that do it and kids that are 10 or 12 have found amazing things and are interested in history."

“When I was a kid, museums were dark, dismal and musty and smelled like old books. Nowadays they are colourful and very child friendly and people have made them very interesting for children and I think that’s great.”

A childhood interest in history first led him to metal detecting and he has since uncovered thousands of lost objects. ”I’ve found some great things. I’ve got about six or seven thousand things that I’ve found. I’ve found two Roman sites near my house which people had known nothing about. I’ve also found Bronze Age things, but never a hoard,” he said.

“I’ve started to find some Saxon things in my village, and as my village was created by the Saxons I think I’ve found the site where they lived."

“The book shows what is out there, what has been found and how many times things have been found accidentally by children playing or by workmen, as well as things that have been found in peoples back gardens. I say to everybody: ‘Check your back gardens’, no matter where you live.”

...

[Diego]

Considering this thread has gone way off topic, we have deleted the last two posts, by request of the thread starter.

Diego