Plants take in all they need to live from their surroundings. In doing so they collect and store chemical traces from water, air, and soil that can then be used to look back in time at potential contamination events. A series of new and innovative sampling methods have been developed to access this valuable data, which can relate to potential human exposures and health impacts. Traditional techniques of drilling sampling wells are energy, material and labor intensive and can also be very destructive. Using new techniques that place sampling devices inside the trees, we can evaluate the extent of subsurface contaminants and even monitor changes in contaminant concentration by sampling the trees naturally occurring on a contaminated site or by sampling those planted in phytoremediation or redevelopment efforts. This approach can be accomplished with almost no mobilization costs, and minimal expense or damage to the site and the data can be produced with unmatched speed. Mother Nature can tell us a lot, we just had to learn how to listen.