Living Walls
Green Design’s Vertical Gardens
Mar 9th
Green Design in Sydney, Australia, defines a vertical garden as “a unique structure that holds indoor plants in a vertical and horizontal pattern in freestanding columns and walls.” They’ve taken that definition and built a freestanding wall of planters to create a vertical garden. Their type of greenwall can be used as a unique room divider since it is freestanding. They use recyclable plastic pots and the garden is resistant to mold. They also mention the living wall would be a form of advertising for your business since everyone would be talking about it… something I hadn’t thought of.
They state that each pot can hold enough water to keep plants hydrated.. but you have to wonder how frequently they have to be watered and the work involved. If you’ve got a high green wall, you’re on a ladder each time you need to water unless you install an irrigation system. With this system, it doesn’t hide the irrigation pipes quite as nicely as a Patrick Blanc style living wall or a Woolly Pocket vertical garden… the pipes would be right out there in the open which would definitely impact the look. If you’re willing to go to the trouble of hand watering each planter, though, there’s no denying their wall looks good.
However, the company also partnered with the Green Wall Company which makes solid green walls instead of a wall of planters. That technique allows for a bigger wall with less of a watering headache. You can see in the photo below that there’s a metal resevoir holding the water which will be pumped to the top of the mini vertical garden automatically through a timer. You can’t see the irrigation pipes either.
Small Green Wall
Large green wall
Vertical garden cafe
Window sill vertical garden
Sustainable Vertical Garden Design
Mar 3rd
Here’s an interesting set of vertical garden designs from Sustainable Garden Design in Perth, Australia. As you can see right away, there’s an interesting choice of plants for the vertical garden due to the climate and the designs are really unique. Using a combination of rocks and interesting building materials, these living walls really stand out… and somehow still work with the landscape.
Unique living wall
Rock Tower Living Walls
Vertical garden as a garden screen
Green wall garden screen close up
Unique Vertical garden
Pleaching and Espalier
Mar 1st
Pleaching and espalier are two techniques used to create interesting living walls. Pleaching involves weaving the branches of closely grouped trees together. The result is a living wall created over many years. Farmers use this technique with fruit trees as well as with hedges to make them more secure. Note the size of the living wall compared to the people in the background by the gate… it’s massive.
Arley Hall, Northwich, Cheshire in Northern England
Pleaching isn’t hard, but it does require training the plants early. There aren’t many North American trees that pleach well so if you’re looking to do it, you’d likely want to check with an arborist to ensure your work pays off.
Pleached apple trees
Trees that have pliable branches are the best to use and include apple, linden and hawthorn trees. The picture above is of a bunch of apple trees pleached to form a pathway.
Pleaching trees and hedges
To make the hedge above, the specimens should be planted 4-5 feet apart . The lower part of the trunk shouldn’t have any branches on it. You’ll tie jute twine between the trees to be a guide for the branches to grow together. After the plants grow and thicken, you can get rid of the twine and you’ll have a living wall.
Espalier services shows a conservatory at Longwood Gardens which uses the espalier technique to grow the plant along a wire fence to make the rooms of the large building more intimate. Espalier is the art of make plants into 2D objects instead of 3D. You can also make this wall out of certain types of fruit trees which has the benefit of allowing you to pick fruit right off the wall.
Indoor espalier fence
Here are three apple trees at Longwood Gardens again made into u-shaped espaliers. It saves space as they’re grown flat against the wall and allows you to pick the fruit easily. Below shows espaliers on a larger scale. The first shows the setup began its first tier at 4 ft high to create the living fence. The second is two years later.
Espalier rows living fence
Espalier rows
Here’s a few more espaliers from Gus&otherthings showing them used as a living fence and directly against a wall as a vertical garden.
Espalier living walls
Espalier green walls
Espalier living fence
Massive Vertical Garden in Portland, Oregon
Feb 11th
Vertical Garden Portland
Wyatt Federal Building is planning to build a row of 250 ft. trellises along the west side of its building. SERA Architects is in charge of the remodel of the entire building and has a $135 million budget from the Federal stimulus fund. It’s a unique vertical garden that’s build on a series of 7 panels called ‘vegetated fins’ that will help shade a cool the west side of the building.
The vertical garden will be eye catching, but functional as well. In the winter when the leaves fall off the vertical garden to reveal bare stems, natural light will be let in the building. The entire budget also includes allowances for solar arrays, electricity-generating elevators and a smart lighting system.
SERA Architects is still trying to figure out what plants will grow at over than 200 feet in the air. To prune the walls, workers will be lowered from the the top of the vertical garden like window washers.
My personal take is that it’s a bit much. That’s going to cost a lot of money out of a stimulus fund where a living wall on a bit of a smaller scale would do well. Building something that high in the air as individual wedges would cost a fortune. I’d say if it was done lower to the ground, it would save an exponential amount of money. Then if some of the savings were used to put up an indoor biowall to actively filter the air as well, it might be a better use of cash to go green.
Via Washington Post
