Soil depth and Gardeners

[Tor]

Does anyone know how deep the earth has to be for the various plants? I'm wondering like if you were trying to grow them in a place where it might just be a foot of dirt on top of solid bedrock, or if one was growing them on imported soil on a spaceship or on a place like Wormwood.

[The Galactus Kid]

There really doesn't have to be soil, so to speak. Immature plants are fueld by stored bio-e while larger plants are effectively a combination lithovore and photosynthetic organism. They can be planted on solid rock and still grow.

Wormwood is an interesting proposition since there are some areas where there is enough soil, but for the most part, the planet is a dense fleshy material. I didn't write the Gardener with the intent of ever being use outside of the Splicer setting since it is a magically dead or null setting, so getting off world is nigh impossible.

[Tor]

Psh, there's always a way. If living/MDC ground was a problem I figured I would just import soil to Wormwood using Earth Warlocks or something, figuring out interplanetary symbiosis meshing would be some kind of long-term project.

That bit about solid rock is interesting though...

Since you could collect sunlight in outer-space, and if I'm right to think lithovore and lithotroph are synonyms, going by Wikipedia:
*organisms using inorganic substrate (usually of mineral origin) to obtain reducing equivalents for use in biosynthesis (e.g., carbon dioxide fixation) or energy conservation (i.e., ATP production) via aerobic or anaerobic respiration.

I guess the question is: do any (or all) of these use aerobic respiration? If so, that would greatly limit their use outside an atmosphere. Also are there any particular minerals needed, in case some planets (or starship stockpiles) are lacking in them?

Even if most plants aren't naturally strong enough to dig into wormwood flesh, I'm betting some of them (like those cutty things) would be able to dig their way in. Perhaps those would be needed to aid other plants in rooting or establishing feeding off the planet? As fast as it heals, enough cutty guys would overcome that healing. I guess the question is if WW would send parasites to fight off the infection.

[The Galactus Kid]

Use outside of an atmosphere is possible, but only for speficially developed plant defenses that have been designed with anerobic repiration.

I'm not really going to comment on wormwood for my previously mentioned reason. I view and write Splicers from the perspective of being completely isolateed in the megaverse.