Living Walls and Vertical Gardens

Greenery Office Interiors is owned by a Calgarian, Joanne Young, who recently installed the largest living wall in Western Canada in Jamieson Place. They used a pre-planted modular vertical gardening system to create two walls inside the building. The living walls get natural light via huge skylights in the ceiling and are drip fed on a timed irrigation system. The small wall is 750 sq ft and the large wall is 1200 sq ft… there are over 20,000 plants in 20 different varieties!

I love the way they’re collecting the water from the irrigation system. They have dark stones setup above a grate so the water trickles through the vertical garden and into the reservoir while hiding the grate itself. It gives a great, natural look. Global TV’s Gil Tucker did an interview that you can see here.

They used McRae’s Modular Greenwall System which includes a special growing foam, a powder coated metal grid and a waterproof backing. Each grid can be either pregrown or planted in place. You don’t need to clean the dirt off the plants.. just stuff the plants into the foam right from 3″ pots. The roots can easily spread in the foam and it gives the right combination of air and water to help the plants grow. You can see a diagram of the system at the bottom of this post.

Stones over drip irrigation

Touching up the Greenwall

Greenwall construction

Sun from the skylight above hits the living wall

Touching up the Greenwall in the hard-to-reach places

Close up of McRae's Vertical Gardening system

Greenwall Diagram