true art.
Close-up of Goodwill’s living wall
Goodwill vertical garden
A vertical garden in a Tacoma Goodwill (just outside of Seattle) has about 100 different plant varieties installed. The wall was built in Patrick Blanc’s style and has layers of felt stapled together which hold pockets of dirt for the plants to grow in. It’s watered hydroponically. The wall is 20 by 40 feet.. so a total size of 800 square feet. Blanc even came to visit to supervise the installation of the living wall.
Blanc built his first vertical garden (mur vegetal in French) 30 years ago. He was inspired by seeing plants growing on rocks straight up a cliff using little or no soil.
Ferns, shrubs, liriope and Japenese forest grass are included in the living wall. Theres’ 96 plants total. The epimedium isn’t doing great, but the yews, andromeda and iris are doing well. Even the woody plants are doing well.
Goodwill Living Wall Close Up
A metal frame attached to the building with PVC piping on top of that. Then two layers of felt are attached over the piping and metal backing. Slits are cut into the felt to make little planting pockets. Some of the soil was knocked off the plant roots, then the plants were placed in the felt.
The 20′ by 40′ foot wall has two horizantal bands of drip irrigation (one every 10′ of vertical garden). So the water and nutrients are fed hydroponically. In the winter the system is turned off to prevent the wall from freezing.
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