Living Walls and Vertical Gardens
true art.
Greenwall installation in Phyto Universe
May 1st
Phyto Salon's Greenwall
Phyto Universe, an upscale Manhattan salon, had a 2,850 square foot greenwall installed by engineer Laurent Corradi with Plant Wall Design. Before construction, Laurent presented a concept for the digital sequencing or mapping, which dictates what species of plants would go where, and how far apart. “Plants have different textures and shapes, so sequencing is like painting with plants” explains Corradi. I love that quote.
Corradi constructed a 13 foot doublefaced wall of structural aluminiun with a layer of pvc on each side. Layers of a special felt fabric that does not require soil – aqua-nap – were attached to the PVC on either side of the wall. Then, he installed UV tracks to provide artificial lighting on both the window and the interior sections of the wall. The UV reflective lamps shine on plants for 8 hours daily to provide essential light plants require. The wall temperature is set between 50 to 75 degrees fahrenheit to mimic a rainforest climate.
Greenwall
A total of 9,000 plants are on the wall including philodendron, ponytail, hibiscus, ferns, anthurium, ficus and begonia. The plants have their ‘roots’ from all over the world. Some are from the Amazon, Africa, Guyana, the Caribbean and French Polynesia.
The plants love a humid environment and don’t actually have to be watered often. However, when they do get watered, Laurent Corradi installed an irrigation system with 14 different zones in the greenwall. The location of the plants on the wall also has an effect on the the amount of water needed. The plants closer to the bottom tend to get more water at the top as the water steadily drips down the wall. Each zone is watered for one minute 3 times daily.
It took approximately two months to conceive, construct, and plant the 2,900-square-foot garden, as well as to monitor growth and troubleshoot the issue of dying plants.
You can see the video below – the greenwall is discussed in the last half of the 90 second video.
Joe Zazzera and Tournesol’s Vertical Garden
Apr 28th
Joe and his company, Plant Solutions, have been providing Interior Plantscape design, installation and maintenance services in the Phoenix area since 1981. He’s actively involved in seeing indoor plants adopted into the Indoor Environmental Quality section of the LEED rating system.
According to a recent study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., indoor air can be up to 10 times more polluted than the air outside. A separate NASA study found interior plants can reduce airborne molds that cause sickness by as much as 50 percent. Through interiorscaping, Joe is actively helping remove VOC’s from the air in the homes and offices of his clients.
Terrascreen
Joe worked with Tournesol Siteworks to make a vertical garden from their TerraScreen product. Joe installed two of the 4′ by 4′ panels in Plant Solutions’ conference room to show prospective clients.
Terrascreen
This is how it works:
All modules are made of black powder-coated galvanized steel wire, with integral brackets to fasten the panel to the wall. Panels may be mounted adjacent to one another to create larger coverage areas.
Plants are placed in their 6″ grow pot directly into the black no-hole cachepot. The hanger system keeps the plants in place. Replacement is simple – just remove the plant from its cachepot, put another in its place.
A pressurized tank-based irrigation system is also available for the TerraScreen system. Ask your Tournesol Siteworks salesperson for details.
• Panel system stands 4-5/8” from wall, but requires minimum of 18” from wall for plants
• All TerraScreen™ systems should include a catch basin mounted below
• TerraScreen™ systems work best if wall behind panels is waterproofed and painted black.
• Approx. panel load – 170lbs. for 48”h, 250lbs. for 72”h TerraScreen™
From Joe:
The wall was easily installed with no excess engineering or parts. We mounted like-painted 1×2s first, and then mounted the panels to them. When we first put the wall in, we used it without the additional watering system. This has required a lot of maintenance time, so when we had the opportunity we retrofitted the wall with the watering system and now have to dedicate much less time to maintenance.
We show this wall to our clients, mostly law offices, that have fresh flower budgets in place. We can lease them this wall with a plant rotation for about the same price they are paying for their weekly or twice-weekly flower rotations. It’s much more of a conversation piece, everyone comments on how cools and hip it is – they cannot help it!
The plants in this wall are pothos along with Neorgilia “Medusa” for color from Olive Hill nurseries. The Neorgilia variety seems to hold up longer than other varieties, thereby providing a better return on investment – and the clients love them.
Interiorscaping
Tournesol Siteworks has a few more interesting vertical garden products out there that you may want to check out.
If you’re a vertical garden installer, please feel free to add yourself to the directory on this site – it’s free. Also, if you have questions or design ideas, or projects, you can post them to the forum. This is a great spot to connect with others that are looking to build or install greenwalls. If you’re interested in our website traffic stats (I’m a stats junky myself) you can see greentopsites.com. If you have created a living wall that you’d like to see featured here, let me know!
