Living walls and Vertical Gardens

Growing a Vertical Wall Garden of Succulents

Gavin — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:48:27 +0000

Do you have a boring patio or garden wall? Are you looking for a way to add some color and interest to the wall? If so, you should consider creating your very own colorful and living work of art to liven up that space – with succulents.

A vertical garden, or a hanging garden made of living plants, is a fantastic way to turn a ho-hum space into a focal point. Succulents are an excellent choice for a vertical garden because they are hearty, they grow slowly and they come in a range of colors, sizes and textures. Blending a variety of these plants together to create a vertical garden will create instant interest to your space.

Are you intrigued by the idea of adding such a garden to your space, but think that it will be too difficult to create and care for? Think again! A vertical succulent wall garden is actually quite easy to create and rather easy to care for.

Creating the Garden

To create your succulent wall garden, you are going to need a frame, potting soil and a collection of succulent clippings. You can purchase a preassembled frame from a home supply store, or you can create one yourself. Creating one yourself will require a picture frame, a wooden shadow box, planting fabric and potting soil.

After you add your potting soil to your planter, make sure that the wire is accessible. The wire is what will secure the plants in place. To plant the succulents, poke the ends through the wire and push them into the soil. After arranging the plants, let the frame lay flat in a sunny location so that they can take root. This will take anywhere from about 4 to 10 weeks. Once the plants take root, the garden is ready to be displayed on a wall. Alternatively, you can go with a ready-made living wall planter from uzplanters.

Making an Attractive Display

It really doesn’t require much to create an attractive succulent wall garden. There are so many different types of succulent plants and all of them are as attractive as the next. Use your eye for what you think looks best on how to arrange them in the planter. Group together plants that you think look the best. A word of advice; creating a cluster of several of the same types of succulents will make for a very eye-catching display.

Light Considerations

When it comes to hanging your succulent wall garden, you are going to want to display it in a space that receives a lot of sun. Succulents require full sunlight in order to thrive. This means that the space you hang the garden should receive a minimum of six hours of direct sunlight. These plants will survive in areas that receive slightly less sunlight, but they will not thrive as well as they would in direct sunlight.

Watering Your Garden

As with all plants, your succulent wall garden will require regular watering. These plants should be watered when they approach dryness, which is about every 7 days or so. In order to determine whether or not your plants are approaching dryness, use your finger to feel the soil. If it feels on the dry side, the plants will need watering.

To water, remove the planter from the wall and lay it flat. Water the planter lightly and allow the water to drain well before replacing it on the wall.

A succulent wall garden will be sure to add instant interest and life to your space. With little maintenance, these gardens are an ideal addition to your outdoor space.

Vertical Garden Installations

Gavin — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 03:45:23 +0000

Vertical Garden Installations

In today’s world, with limited space in cities, architects and gardeners are turning to a new concept in order to bring some green into the concrete jungle: vertical gardens. Unlike regular gardens, which lie flat on the ground, vertical gardens are designed to climb into the sky. This makes them more difficult to design. First, you have to deal with gravity. Secondly, you have to accommodate for the sunlight each portion of the garden will receive. A plant that thrives in sunlight won’t do well on the north facing side of a building. Likewise, plants that can’t stand the sun need to be placed towards the north, rather than the south. With those things in mind, here are five incredible vertical gardens:

The Bosco Verticale

Back in 2007, the Italian city of Milan was facing a crisis: too much pollution, not enough green space. To deal with this problem, Boeri Studio presented the Bosco Verticale, Italy’s first vertical forest. For the first few years, the project seemed like a pipe dream. In fact, it took over two years for experts to decide what type of plants and trees would best thrive in such a vertical garden. However, as construction began, more and more Milan residents turned into believers. Both towers have been completed, and the Bosco Verticale is scheduled to open in late 2013 under a construction budget of 65 million Euros.

The Westfield Living Wall

Installed in the fall of 2009, the Westfield Living Wall is the largest living wall in Europe. Developed by Scotscape Living Walls, the lush green of the Westfield Living Wall contradicts with two of the other walls on the shopping center, which are both covered with electronic advertising. To keep the wall green, the installation contains a fully automated irrigation system. During Christmas time, thousands of red and white cyclamen were planted to create a flower snowman and Santa Clause to give the wall a more festive feel.

The Point Max Juvénal Overpass

The slate grey of a concrete overpass is one of the least aesthetically pleasing sights in the modern day metropolis. Completed in 2008 by Patrick Blanc, the Point Max Juvénal Overpass is a vertical garden like no other. Rather than driving beneath a boring concrete overpass, drivers and passengers get to pass under a luxurious vertical garden. The Point Max Juvénal Overpass turns what was once an eyesore into a thing of beauty while also improving the environment.

The National Gallery in London

Back in 2011, the National Gallery in London decided to run a special feature: they wanted pieces of living art for their gallery. Scotscape was up to the challenge, creating a living wall that was a replica of a Van Gogh painting, “Wheatfield with Cypressus”. As the wall was a piece of art, weekly visits were scheduled to ensure the vertical garden maintained it’s resemblance to the painting. Surprisingly, the garden only took three days to install, and visitors were able to enjoy it from July to November 2011 when it was taken down again. The irrigation system was reused.

The Green Houses

While not one particular garden, more and more “green houses” are popping up. These aren’t the greenhouses that hold flowers or plants for gardeners – rather, these houses are made up of vertical gardens. Each side of the house features a beautiful vertical garden instead of a plain wall. In order for green houses to survive, designers and architects need to create a water membrane to ensure the plants stay moisturized all year long. For those that live inside the green houses, the extra expense and upkeep is worth it. Rather than coming home to the same suburban beige as others, they’re greeted to a beautiful green treat.

Framed Vertical Garden Video Installation

Gavin — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 14:22:51 +0000

This framed vertical garden is created using a Bright Green Grovert living wall kit. Below is a quick video showing to plant it up and hang it.

GroVert Plant Recipe

Gavin — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 23:28:44 +0000

Here’s a fun way to garden vertically with a recipe of plants that fit perfectly in the GroVert Vertical Garden Panel from Urban Zeal. Many people often wonder what plants work well in a vertical garden. Really planting vertically is similar to growing plants in pots or containers. You have to watch out for the amount of light the plants get as well as the root depth the plants need. That’s it! The handy diagram below shows you a sample setup in a GroVert container that has room for about 4″ root depth. This plant recipe will do well in both indoors and outdoors in shade. We’ll post more of these recipes periodically.

Crunch Time – Create a Vertical Garden You Can Eat

Alicia — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 17:05:28 +0000

Foodies this is your chance if you don’t have a large garden – you can create your own vertical garden inside or outside and fill it with organic, home grown vegetables! Yum! Growing vegetables in a vertical garden is probably one of the most practical usages of a vertical garden and has become increasingly popular especially since Amy Goldman created a wall of lettuce for the Philadelphia International Flower Show which was 9 feet high and 40 feet wide. Her wall included 6 different variety of lettuces with 3,000 leafy heads!

The creator of lettuce vertical vegetable garden was praised because if you want to create an outdoor vegetable garden, this example showed how easy it was to access the vegetables and maintain them. A person doesn’t have to bend to use the garden and was considered perfect for baby boomer retirees who love to garden but have difficultly bending, and having a vertical garden means you give yourself the opportunity to stand up whilst you’re gardening.

The most obvious benefit about a vertical vegetable garden is that you can eat it. Also, you can include different plants to make it look beautiful. There are an array of edible plants that you can include in a vegetable vertical garden including lettuce, mixed herbs, cherry tomatoes, sage, rosemary, celery leaf and you can also add pansy’s which are lovely colorful inclusion on both a wall and in a salad.

You can organize the plants in such a manner so they look good, and you don’t need to add fertilizer as for a vegetable vertical garden you’re not trying to harvest like crazy, and also too much fertilizer for some vegetables ruins the flavor.

Top tips to growing a vertical vegetable garden:

Pick your wall – It is most common for a vegetable garden to have a sunny wall with typically four hours per day as the starting point for a vegetable garden. However, if your wall is shady, make sure you consider what you’re growing because different plant varieties thrive in shade so you are not limited by the sun!
Determine the look you want to achieve when you create your edible wall, there are many different types of apparatus on the market. Try woolly pockets which are known to be one of the best vertical garden solutions and are made of recycled plastic materials and often come with a mounting frame: Felt Pocket Vertical Garden
Select your vegetables and remember the root depth of your vegetables. Consider what’s typically grown in the regional area which you live. Try foods you love and would want to cook with – remember it’s a wall you can eat. Have fun experimenting with different fruits or vegetables like small melons, broccoli, brussel sprouts, mustard seeds.
Irrigate – if you are time poor but love your garden, it’s often wise to include an easy to install drip system which is one of the easiest ways to look after the plants on your living wall. Here’s an irrigator from uzplanters.com

For many people a garden can be a source of nutritious plants and this can be achieved via a vertical garden. Urban Zeal Planters has a fine selection of products which are suitable for creating a vertical vegetable garden.

Indoor Herb Vetical Gardens

Alicia — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 01:36:05 +0000

It’s approaching the end of summer and rather than saying good-bye to your herbs why not go inside and try an indoor vertical herb garden? But, if you live in an apartment and have space restrictions a permanent vertical herb garden might just be the solution for you – where you can have herbs inside all year round. You may also like to get creative and add colour by adding succulents.

When growing any vertical garden indoors or outdoors the biggest consideration is choosing the wall and analysing how much light you will get. The light will impact the herbs you can grow inside.

What should you grow your herbs in?

The best solution when growing herbs inside is to use woolly pockets as they provide the right environment for growing herbs and vegetables. The best kits come with moisture barriers to protect your wall (of course you can use these kits either inside or outdoors). Woolly Wally’s offer a sustainable solution where the pockets are made by 100% recycled bottles: Woolly Pockets

Top Herbs To Grow Inside on Your Vertical Garden

Walls Which Don’t Get Much Light

If your wall doesn’t get much light there are herbs which will have a better chance of survival indoors. One of the easiest herbs to grow indoors is chives. Your best bet is to get a cutting from an already existing chive plant but go for a cutting from the roots upwards. Another herb which thrives in shade is of course mint, where you have options of both mint and spearmint. They are hearty herbs but since they are invasive keep your minty herbs in their own woolly pocket. If you don’t have space to grow both mints then peppermint is probably the better option as you don’t need as much to create a minty effect. Another indoor herb which is easy to grow is parsley which is a wonderful addition to any herb garden. It’s very easy to grow but remember to be patient as parsley grows very slowly. But, the positive note is that parsley doesn’t need much maintenance in terms of cuttings.

Sun Loving Herbs

Greek oregano is a very sun loving herb insisting on at least six to eight hours of sun. Another sun loving herb is thyme which is also greedy for sun also needing six to eight hours of sunlight but it might even want more! If you have space in your woolly pockets you might even be able to grow lemon thyme which is a much rarer herb, but has a lovely citrus flavour. Vietnamese coriander (cilantro) is a very reliable herb but indoors the Vietnamese version is easier to grow. Rosemary is a lovely creeping plant perfect for any vertical garden indoor or out. Tuscan Blue or Blue Spire are upright varieties which are perfect for a living wall.

One of the most delicious flavoursome is herbs basil but it is also one of the most difficult to grow indoors especially in Winter months. However, if you want to give it a go, the best basil varieties include Spicy Globe or African Globe.

A Vision Of Green: Key Steps to Creating A European Style Vertical Garden

Alicia — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 18:23:10 +0000

Growing vertical is in vogue. Wander European streets and you will stumble upon beautiful gardens and magnificent living walls which leave you breathless and envious. The Europeans know how to make the best use of the limited space they have with their vertical gardens.

But, even when space saving isn’t the objective, the vertical gardens are about beauty. Europe is covered with plants. Ivy weaves and crawls up walls creating dazzling textures. Buildings and balconies are covered with fruit vines – shade is created. Plants have been turned into artwork. The garden is the draw card for many boutique restaurants. These European vertical gardens have turned restaurants into secret havens. They’ve become places of wonderment, where tourists sit awed and dream. If you have your own vision of a vertical lush green garden then read on – it’s easy to create.

The creation of your living wall needs a few things:

Wall or railing (inside or out) for you hang your living garden
Living wall panel cells (planter)
Plants
Creative Design
Soil

The steps to your living wall masterpiece:

Step One:

Identify the space where you want your living wall. Remember, you can have create them inside or outside. It’s becoming quite fashionable (if there is enough light) for an office to have living wall.

Step Two:

Measure how big you want your living wall. It is possible to buy living wall panels or cells. They often come in 10 or 45 cells and depending on the garden size, you can buy multiple panels. GroVert provides several options for you.

Lets refer to this as planter cells to avoid confusion. The planter cells is a series of individual spaces to place your plants. You can see it here.

The planter cells also come with angled slats which enables the plants you select to grow vertically. Also, the angled slats enable the water to trickle down and go inside of each planter.

Step Three:

It’s important to choose the right plants and remember to look at the area where you are going to hang your living wall. Assess the amount of sun that you are going to get as this will help determine the type of plants suitable for the wall. Remember, when choosing plants don’t select them if they have a large roots system. If there is a lot of sun perhaps choose succulents. However, if your wall is shady then ferns or ivy would be more appropriate..

Step Four:

Once you have chosen the plants, it is best to break them apart and add them to the individual planter cells. This is where your creativity and fun comes in. Design your garden, and create shapes or weaves or simply mix and match the textures that you have selected. The design is completely up to you!

Step Five:

Add the soil and ensure you have filled all the openings. You are almost done.

Step Six:

The planter will come with a mechanism to attach or hang easily to the wall. Remember, you can attach it to a wall or a railing.

Remember, if you’re not going to Europe why not create it and bring it to you! After the six easy steps, remember to sit back and enjoy the piece of paradise that you have created! All these accessories for living walls are available from

Good luck and have fun!

Why create a Living Wall in Your Garden, Home or Office?

Alicia — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 16:10:20 +0000

Vertical gardens are stunning, and plants create wonderful visually appealing walls which can turn drab concrete into something spectacular. Also, vertical gardens are perfect for the space poor – as now it’s possible to have a garden even if it’s not horizontal. But, despite the obvious visual aesthetics of a having a living wall what are the other benefits and why should you turn your boring concrete into something quite remarkable?

Improved Energy Efficiency

Living walls are an excellent solution to improving a buildings thermal insulation. Once you install a living wall, you’ll more than likely find energy reductions in either heating and cooling of the building.

The amount of energy saved varies, and of course is influenced by many different variants. Influencing factors include: climate, distance from the side of buildings and the density of the plant coverage. Other benefits include:

- living walls create excellent wind protection during winter months

- Interior living walls help reduce the energy required for heating / cooling the outdoor air for indoor use

- limits movement of heat through thick vegetation mass

- the living wall structure is able to reduce the ambient temperatures by offering shading

Building Structure Protection

All buildings are exposed to the elements and weathering over a period of time. Buildings expand and contract and these shifts and movements might occur because of heat, where perhaps the building is directly exposed to UV rays. Or maybe the building shifts because it is exposed to extreme cold weather and freezing temperatures. A living wall has huge benefits because the plants protect the building against the weather fluctuations. Also, the living wall is great protection from those windy days which helps with seals or air tightness of doors and windows.

Improved Indoor Air Quality

A great benefit of having plants indoors is that they are natural filters. Living walls are able to help remove contaminates that are normally flushed of buildings through traditional filtration systems. The plants capture airborne pollutants such as dust and pollen as well as filtering noxious gases, VOC’s from carpets and furniture.

Noise Reduction

The plants growing inside the living wall system will help contribute to an overall reduction of noise that transmits or reflects from the wall. Buildings sitting on busy roads are hugely benefited because the living wall acts to block out noise. The amount of noise reduction and sound the living wall is able to filter out does depend on the depth of the plants, the plants and materials used as well as the structural components when creating the living wall.

How to get all these benefits:

It’s very easy to DIY a vertical garden. But, you need to find the right vertical garden panels to suit your garden design. Depending on the style of your home or office there are very nice stainless steel vertical garden panels. My personal favorite are the Cedar Herb garden panels (so you can have the added benefit of having a herb garden). Good luck!

The History of Living Walls

Alicia — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 16:28:42 +0000

A living wall is … is a vertical arrangement of plants and other organisms that naturally remove toxins and unhealthy contaminants from the air that we breathe. They can be a complete ecosystem or a simple configuration of plants and they have been introduced to decontaminate urban environments. Living walls are both indoor and outdoor.

Why plants? Plants in their very nature have served the earth. They have been essential sources to us humans and plants have supplied us with food, clothing and shelter. Now, more than half of the world’s population lives in an industrial cities where concrete structures dominate. However, with the push for healthier environments the world is turning back to green and designers, architects and planners are including plants as a way to improve existing infrastructural aesthetics. Also, green infrastructure is said to provide cleaner air and water, and improve the overall environment, human health and human mental wellbeing.

History repeating itself? Vertical gardens aren’t new. In fact, they’re an ancient concept with examples in architectural history reaching the Babylonians. One of the seven wonders of the ancient world includes the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

History says that Romans used to train grapevines, on garden trellises and on villa walls. Also, climbing roses were the symbols of secret gardens.

1920’s: There was a garden city moment from the British and Americans which encouraged the integration of garden features and plant usage, for example, using pergolas, trellis structures and self climbing plants.

1988: There was the introduction of the stainless steel cable for green facades.

1990s: Cable and wire rope net systems and modular tellis panel systems enter the market place

1993: The first major application of the new trellis panel system was featured at the Universal City Walk in California. It’s a stunning example of what a lovely feature plants can make in a city.

1994: InCanada, in theCanadaLifeBuildinginToronto, an indoor living wall was created an indoor with bio-filtration system

2002: A stunning example of a living wall is found in theMFOPark. It is multi-tiered approximately 300 inches long and 50 inches high. The park structure opened inZurich,Switzerland. This project had 1,300 plants.

2005: Japanese Federal government sponsored a massive Bio Lung exhibit, the centre piece of the expo in AichiJapan. This wall had 30 different modular systems available inJapan.

2007:Seattleimplements the Green Factor, which includes green walls.

Today: If you are decorating, you always have the option to implement a green wall whether its internally or externally. All you have to do is make sure that your wall will get enough sunlight. It might be wise to check out some of the kits which are very easy to use and put together http://www.uzplanters.com/Vertical-Garden-Panels/GroVert-Living-Walls/.

Also, when creating a living wall – it is also a piece of living artwork! So, have fun and think carefully about the plants that you wish to include. To ensure that you get the maximum environmental benefits there are specific plants which are perfect for helping reduce toxins including: bamboo, chrysanthemums, spider plants, English ivy, elephant ear philodendron, peace lily.

Van Gogh Vertical Garden in London’s Trafalgar Square

Alicia — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 15:47:56 +0000

Must see: For the first time ever, a painting has been brought to life and made into a living wall! It’s exciting and it’s spectacular and when you first walk past , you might think that it’s actually a painting. But look closely – plants!!! Anyway, this piece of art is available for the world to see until October 2012. So, if you’re inLondon for the Olympics, get yourself to Trafalgar Square and plant yourself in front of the wall of the National Gallery (which also has free entry) and check out this spectacular piece of living wall art.

The National Gallery together with GE selected a painting called ‘A Wheatfield, with Cypresses’. This work of art was painted by Van Gogh whilst he was a patient at the St-Remy mental asylum. Note: the original work of art is available for viewing in Room 45 of the National Gallery. Remember, that this painting was crafted by one man in 1889. Now, to create living wall art of the same caliber and complexity using plants, a team of designers had to form together to develop a plan, bringing the masterpiece back to life.

How they created the living wall art: To recreate the genius of Van Gogh the designers were essentially using a different medium which brought many different issues of texture and colour. They selected over 8,000 plants and used more than 26 varieties to mimic the strong bands of colour which are found in the original picture. The varieties included in the design had to match the different brush strokes and the different textures.

The designers used a Living Walling System. The system they used had 640 modules which were grown before in a nursery. A predetermined design was important to ensure that they could match the painting. Grid-like modules were used which indicated where varieties should be planted.

Once the plants had mostly grown, the individual modules were transported to London. The plants had to be put together in the right sequence to create the picture as a whole.

Within a tight timeframe of three days, the modules were then hung vertically inTrafalgar Square for the world to see the incredible living wall.

The living wall does need slight maintenance and this is carried out fortnightly throughout the UK spring and summer. The general maintenance includes visual checks of plant health, watering and pruning. However, this walling system does include an in-built irrigation system to ensure that the plants are watered regularly.

Why did they do it: The National Gallery embarked on this project to stimulate interest in its paintings. Also, the National Gallery has a commitment to being environmentally responsible and they have a plan to increase energy efficiency and reduce their carbon emissions by up to 40% within a four year period. This single but spectacular project alone is 62% of the gallery’s target emissions.

How to Find it: Travelling roundLondon head straight to Trafalgar Square. Your closet tube stations are Charring Cross /Piccadilly Circus / Leicester Square Underground station. It’s an easy walk from there!

Comments: Please send us a comment if you have seen it or if you have any questions on how you can create something like this!