There’s no reason we have to limit ourselves to growing in
the ground. A lot of us already have plants growing in containers, hanging
baskets and even old brightly painted tin cans, so there’s nothing new there.
How about covering the whole wall space with plants though? It sounds a bit
excessive, but the idea is growing in popularity with both businesses and
individual homeowners embracing a greener future in urban areas.
Vertical gardening
The plants are kept in
place by means of small pockets; in this case they were made from modular
plastic pot shaped moulds that click together.
At this size the structures need to be fastened securely and most of
them sit on a specially constructed galvanized metal frame that sits away from
the wall to allow for ventilation.
It’s in cases like this that gardening meets high end design
and incorporates the skills of not only the plants person but architects,
builders and engineers. Which is great because it confirms that gardeners are
in the same league as other professions and are being recognised as so. Gone
are the stuffy days of the public thinking professional gardeners sit in their potting
sheds smoking a pipe and will work all day for the price of a bag of chips.
Hopefully these types of innovations will attract a new generation of modern
gardeners who will ‘green up’ our built up urban towns and cities.
The structures are designed to actually protect walls.
Modern materials such as plastics can have a shorter lifespan when the suns UV
light hits them and constant heating and cooling could cause cracking. Because
of the gap between surfaces there’s no problem with damp or structural damage
you would get with something that clings to the wall such as ivy or is fastened
by wires.
These types of wall covers don’t come cheap though, the
average price of a commercial wall such as this could cost you up to €500 per
square metre. The companies claim the plant covers could triple the lifespan of
the walls so this offsets at least a part of the cost. Plants will need replacing from time to time
but if they are chosen correctly and given just the right amount of water and
feed, there’s no huge cash outlay after
they have been installed – apart from paying an abseiling gardener. Rooftop
rainwater collection could feed the plants by inertia drip feed cutting down
the need for electrical pumps.
The designs are used to good effect indoors too and have the
same principle of allowing air to pass behind them sparing the wall any damp.
There are some massive corporate ones but we can make our own out of something
as simple as a picture frame and a bit of old cloth made into pockets, which
would be an ideal home for succulents.
There’s no need for us to be plashing the cash on huge
planting schemes. There are products on the market that can be hung on the wall
and planted up. If you imagine one of those sheets full of pockets that hang on
a bedroom door to put rubbish in and triple the price you will get the idea.
The increase in price is because the material has to be thicker. There are
solid plastic type holders you can get as well. These click together to make
the wall covering as large as your pocket will allow (these cost about €20 for
three pots) so I’d say it’d cost you a mortgage to cover the front of the
house. The main issue I can see with these small home DIY kits is the lack of
air circulation behind them. It could be a mould problem waiting to happen so the
solution could be to attach them to wooden batons.
Let’s assume we have covered the front of the house and the
interior walls with decorative plants, but how about the idea of a ‘vertical
allotment’ where we can grow our edibles in confined spaces, ideal for the city
dweller that only has a balcony? I think it could easily be possible to get a
healthy crop of salads plants. I’m not sure about main crops such as carrots,
peas and spuds but I should think you would have fun experimenting.
