Inside Urban Green

Edmonton, Canada » A New Airport Terminal With a Living Wall

The new Edmonton International Airport expansion opened yesterday, February 11. This video animation from 2010 does an excellent job of highlighting its new features including a 2-story, 98 foot (30 meters) wide hydroponic living wall by Stantec (Canadian architectural firm).

The living wall, along with other passenger-friendly features, is very cool indeed. Have a look and you will see the living wall both near the beginning and the end of the video. Read more (and view a news video) about the terminal here.

Time flies too. Did you know that the Denver International Airport is the only major airport to be built in the United States in the last 25 years. It opened 17 years ago in February, 1995.

How are we ever going to find the political will and the funding to update our aging infrastructure in the divisive political climate we live in? We better figure out the answer soon or we're all in big trouble.

I have time to take a bus. Busy business people do not have that luxury. Neither does our economy.

via www.youtube.com

 

Guinness World Record Mega-Squash

Joel Jarvis of St. Thomas poses for a recent picture with the 1,487-pound squash he grew on his farm. The gourd breaks the old Guinness Book of World Records title by more than 200 pounds.

Will someone please authenticate this photo. I doubt that it was Photoshopped but you never know in these digital days.

It was interesting to read that Joel is an interior plantscaper. I firmly believe that this is one of the best ways to learn about growing plants in the urban built environment. Growing plants inside buildings is always a challenge but it's a great way to learn.

Interior plantscapers water more plants in a day than most houseplant hobbyists do in a month. Hobby gardeners would learn a lot about plant light/water relationships if they had an interior plantscaping work experience. The job doesn't pay a lot but it's a valuable intern experience. When coupled with some higher education in plant science and horticulture it can lead to a rewarding career as a modern day urban greenscaper. Just don't listen to the drain hole and dirt only dudes and divas.

via www.metronews.ca

While Jarvis’ day job with London Interiorscapes helps funnel his love for growing, he’s yet to have any requests for creating anything too out of the ordinary.

“We look after interior plants in office buildings — upkeep and maintenance of live, tropical plants,” Jarvis said. “If they want to put a squash or something (in the lobby) I would be more than happy to make that happen.”

Joel Jarvis knows his way around super vegetables.

He’s been growing them since the ripe age of 11.

“You pick up little (techniques) along the way,” the St. Thomas resident said. “It’s just persistence, I think. That’s the reason for my success.”

Jarvis, who puts his green thumb to work daily in Forest City office buildings, recently plucked a 1,487-pound squash off the vine at his hobby farm. The gourd trumps the old Guinness record by more than 200 pounds.

There’s a lot more to cultivating gargantuan vegetables than just planting the seeds and watching them grow, Jarvis said. It can be a painstaking process that requires constant vigilance.

Patrick Blanc » Authentic Horticultural Genius

Every day doing my research, I see the word genius along with other undeserved superlatives tossed around indiscriminately. Hyperbole is the order of the day. In the case of Patrick Blanc, however, the word genius is well deserved.

In all my years as an interior plantscaping professional, I know of no other person who has scaled the heights of Monsieur Blanc. With that said, it was still a surprise to see him in a Wall Street Journal video.

In my view, he is largely responsible for breathing new life into the rather moribund, techno-averse interior plantscaping business. Call them green walls, vertical gardens, or living walls. I see Blanc type walls everywhere, most of them by new creative people in the business. There is hope for a new age of urban greenscaping founded on modern technology and that is definitely a good thing.

How would you like to have a view from your desk like his?

via online.wsj.com

Since Biblical times, gardens have been horizontal, with flowers and plants sprouting out of the ground. Patrick Blanc has turned that whole notion on its side, literally. Mr. Blanc is the inventor of the vertical garden, also known as the living (or green) wall.

Mr. Blanc, 58, is a botanist with France's National Center for Scientific Research, the country's giant science and technology agency. He also has a private practice designing gardens. Among the more than 250 he has installed around the world, his most famous are at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, the Caixa Forum Museum in Madrid and the French embassy in New Delhi. A celebrity among horticulturalists, he's even got a new kind of begonia named after him, Begonia blancii, after discovering it two years ago while trekking through a rainforest in the Philippines. These days, a Blanc-designed garden commands well into the six figures.

When he is not on a plane to the Middle East or exploring a remote rainforest in Hawaii to study native plants, Mr. Blanc works at the home he shares with singer Pascal Héni just outside Paris's city limits. There, he has a desk placed on top of a large aquarium, about 20 by 23 feet. "I see the fish swimming beneath my legs," he said. "It is a dream." His office includes a lush living wall, covered with plants. Read more...

The Daily Drain Hole Report »The Big Deception Part 2

About the photo - Light from the windows made this shot more difficult to show details. The trees actually live on the rack in the window to the left. The objective is simply to show the quality of these coffee trees growing in a planter with no drainage. Click on the photo to view larger sizes on Flickr. Click on Actions for the menu that includes "View all sizes".

About the plants - These are a couple of coffee trees (probably Coffea arabica spp.) growing in a sub-irrigated planter (SIP) made from a storage box.

They were 4” pot size plants from Lowe’s purchased back in October 2006 that looked similar to the photo. They have never seen a drain hole since. No drainage!

They were combined into the current SIP on February 15, 2010. My how they have grown in just 5 years.  

About the growing method – The sub-irrigated planter (SIP) was made from a translucent storage box. The internal plumbing consists of a recycled juice bottle, inverted nursery flat and water bottle fill tube. No need for power tools.

Since it is an indoor plant, I did not include an overflow drain hole. A scale or a soil probe is the best way to measure soil moisture for indoor plants growing in subdued light. In this case it is also helpful that the planter is translucent. I can see the soil moisture at a glance.

More about the big deception – The vast majority of gardeners who read houseplant and gardening books would say, “You can’t do that, you need a drain hole!” They will also say that so-called “self-watering” planters are only for moisture loving plants or for when you go on vacation or a business trip.

Spend some time on houseplant forums such as GardenWeb and Dave’s Garden and you will soon find this to be true. I have done it, but not any more.

While many of the folks on garden forums may not have much formal science education, they are not stupid people. It is simply that our horticultural education system is broken.

As a long time industry insider, I know that much of the misinformation and disinformation is intentional and that bothers me greatly. It did not matter as much to me when it only involved decorative plants. Now it involves hunger, obesity, job creation, environmental concerns such as water wastage and the health threat from contaminated city soil and more.

I plan to escalate this issue to the highest levels of government. If you care about doing the right thing, please join in this effort. Even Tweeting helps. I may be speaking naively but I still believe there is power in public awareness.

IKEA » A Modern Look Sub-irrigated Planter

Thanks to a link from reader Karen, here is a cool looking sub-irrigated planter - SIP (aka "self-watering).It is available in 6 3/4" and 8 1/4 in. sizes.

With all of my medical issues this year I have not been to IKEA Brooklyn in a long time. I will soon remedy that and buy one of these for sure. I just checked and they are in stock.

IKEA also has other well designed watertight containers (not necessarily meant to be planters) that can easily be adapted to SIPs or used for clay pebble hydroculture. I will see what they have. Stay tuned. 

via www.ikea.com

New Tool to Measure Indoor Air Pollutants

Will a new instrument that measures indoor air pollutants help to convert a popular field of junk science into real science?

Junk science says that all indoor plants clean the air, including those managing to survive in top-watered clay pots. A logical mind would know that this could not be true.

Unfortunately, legions of garden writers with shallow science education have helped to spread this propaganda.

The widespread urban myth that all houseplants have air-cleaning power started back in the 1980’s when retired NASA scientist Dr. Bill Wolverton partnered with an interior plantscaping industry marketing campaign called “Plants for Clean Air”.

The most important fact always omitted by the media is that Wolverton based his conclusions on the use of sub-irrigated soil media or clay pebble hydroculture. He clearly states this in his 1997 book How to Grow Fresh Air: 50 House Plants that Purify Your Home or Office.  

London » FARM:shop Progress Video

The video was shot this past December. The FARM:shop is now open and apparently thriving.

It appears that there may be lighting issues regarding the nutrient film technique (NFT) hydroponics wall system and the indoor plant vertical garden in the stairwell. Time will tell as it always does when growing plants inside buildings. Light is the limiting factor. The best thing to do is to measure the light with a light meter before planting.

Also note that there are no solid media (artificial soil) based sub-irrigated planters (SIPs). In my view that is a significant omission in what I view as a very progressive urban food production project.

There is also a comprehensive Flickr photo set by AlexandraMPayne a New Yorker who worked at the FARM:shop as a volunteer.

via www.youtube.com

Vertical Gardens Around The World

This site presents a most interesting collection of photos showing the diversity of vertical gardens (aka living walls, green walls) around the world (mostly Europe).

The descriptions are brief so you will need to do some searching for more information about those that interest you. Nonetheless, the collection is impressive and adds much to the subject.

Vertical gardens are obviously a significant urban greenscaping movement. For one thing, they could revolutionize the interior plantscaping industry.

via www.verticalgardendesign.com

An Interior Plantscaping Company That Publicizes Its Use Of SIPs

Kim Parker Plants is a company in California that was a pioneer in the use of sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) from way back in the ‘70s and '80's when I was in the business. I tip my cap to Kim for being both progressive and remaining independent.

She did not sell out to UK based Rentokil when they were buying out companies all over the country. What a sad story that was. 

Like Kim, the majority of interior plantscaping companies use some type of SIP system but very few publicize the fact that they do as Kim does. There is no way of knowing much about the use of these systems in their industry because they simply don't talk about it.

That is a significant loss to us all because the interior plantscaping industry has the largest database of SIP experience of any segment of our society.

The rest of the so-called "green industry" (i.e. commercial horticulture) still calls these systems "self-watering" and has little understanding of how they work.

As is so often the case, the loser in this story is the consuming public. That is particularly true now that so much attention has been turned to consumer edible food production. In land-scarce cities, SIPs are the best vegetable growing choice (but largely unknown choice) for the majority of urbanites. 

SIP photos follow.

Solar Tubes: Both People And Plants Need Natural Light

A quote from the video: "People love natural light and they can't get enough of it”. Plants love it even more and usually can't get enough of it inside buildings. It is the limiting factor (along with education) in the growth of urban greenscaping both decorative and edible.

The future growth of urban greenscaping is clearly aligned with our ability to create more light in buildings. LED technology will have the most impact but I believe we need to do much more than we are currently doing to advance natural light engineering in the built environment. 

These Solatubes (search on "light tubes" and "solar tubes") are an intriguing technology that I would like to know more about from first hand experience. In my view, architects (and landscape architects) need to have a much better understanding of the human need for plants in buildings in urban environments. From long experience in the field (particularly in interior plantscaping), I have observed that the architectural profession is not well versed in plant science.

via www.youtube.com