Inside Urban Green

A Vertical Garden From Germany

This is a vertical garden (aka living wall, green wall) from Germany. Note the larger size individual planter boxes. They are large enough to accommodate plants growing in clay pebble hydroculture, which is what this company does.

The boxes could also be soil-based sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) to grow vegetables.

The system as shown is most probably not priced for the consumer market, but who knows what it could be with widespread consumer acceptance and volume production. For the time being it is a design well within the capabilities of DIY PVC pipe construction.

Automatic translation with Google toolbar installed on Firefox.
Source: www.dieraumbegruener.de

Patrick Blanc Plants a Vertical Garden in Tacoma

Patrick Blanc gets around...that's for sure! He gets my vote as "king of urban greenscapers."

Source: seattletimes.nwsource.com
Via: Veg.itecture.net

VERTICAL GARDENS are literally climbing in popularity, and Tacoma is out front with a green wall designed by the man who invented them. French botanist and artist Patrick Blanc's 800-square-foot vertical garden for the Goodwill-Milgard Work Opportunity Center was unveiled in September. It graces the entrance of an imposing new building designed by BCRA Architects, and is sufficiently large and fluffy to be clearly visible from busy Tacoma Avenue.

TPIE Living Wall Booth Award Winner

Chris Lyon, CEO of Tournesol Siteworks blogged about an award winning booth at the Tropical Plant Industry Exposition (TPIE) in Florida that featured their TerraScreen living wall.

Shane Pliska of Planterra, an interior plantscaping company in Detroit, is the inventor of the TerraScreen. It is a very straightforward and practical way to construct a living wall (see prior post).

Both Tournesol Siteworks and Planterra are companies of the same vintage as mine from back in the 1970’s. They were the golden years of the interior plant industry for both houseplants and commercial plantscaping. Interior plantscaping was then known as the plant rental business.

Tournesol was then known as Planter Technology. Allen Secrest, father of the Natural Spring planter, founded it. That superb invention was the vehicle in the '70s for converting my entire company to sub-irrigation. It was a revolutionary but most successful step to take at that time. Chris has done a great job of steering the company into the 21st century under its new name.

Shane Pliska’s father Larry started Planterra back in the '70s. It is much to his credit that Planterra has survived the disastrous economic decline of the once great auto capital of America. He has made a significant investment in the future with the construction of Planterra’s new facility in West Bloomfield a suburb of Detroit. There is more to come about it in a separate post.

Speaking of the future, it is great to see Larry's son Shane in line to take over the reins of the family business. He is a bright and forward-looking young man. The industry needs many more like him.

Shades of Patrick Blanc in New York City

Click to see NY1 video.

This new living wall in the recently remodeled David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincon Center in New York City looks like Patrick Blanc's work but evidently is not. It is credited to architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. I'm curious as to whether Blanc had anything to do with the project.

I'm also looking forward to visiting the atrium with camera and light meter in the near future. It will be interesting to inspect the construction details of what I am assuming to be a Blanc type felt wall for the first time. Stay tuned for some close up photos!

via new.lincolncenter.org

The facility is named in honor of the philanthropist, financier, and Vice Chairman of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts David Rubenstein, in recognition of his $10 million gift to the Bravo Campaign. The Tod Williams Billie Tsien design reflects a respect for the materials used throughout Lincoln Center and provides an open, accessible, and inviting environment. The Atrium has applied to be the first LEED certified, “green” building on the Lincoln Center campus.

The Atrium also features two vertical gardens; a floor-to-ceiling fountain; a media wall with performance information, which also serves as a canvas for video presentations; an art installation by Dutch textile artisan Claudy Jongstra; and 16 “occuli” lighting fixtures that bring natural light and state-of-the-art illumination into the Atrium's interior.

Valuable Information From a Green Wall Maker

Matthew Mcgregor-Mento has experience constructing a Patrick Blanc style green wall (aka living wall or vertical garden) and shares some excellent information on his blog. It is well worth reading if you're thinking about making a green wall or simply interested in this timely subject.

Watch a video of the wall under construction. Very cool!

Source: diygreenwalls.blogspot.com

Green Fortune Plantwall And Stream Garden

Source: www.greenfortune.com

Back in the 1970s when I was in the interior plantscaping business we did some interesting work using vacuum-sensor sub-irrigation technology. When I see living wall projects like this and others I realize we were still in elementary school. 

Green Fortune is a forward looking company founded in Stockholm, Sweden in 2004. I blogged about them back then when their sole product was the Stream Garden, a very cool home hydroponics unit. I see now that they have reps in Denmark, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Finland, Russia and Latvia. It's great to see them doing well. Come to America Green Fortune!

Source: www.youtube.com Via: www.livingwallart.com

Read more about Green Fortune and the Stream Garden

Woolly Pockets: A Modular Living Wall System

It is becoming increasingly clear that Patrick Blanc has spawned a new branch of greenscaping both indoors and out. Woolly and Wally Pockets are a good example of a new product and business using a variation of his felt pocket living wall technique.

In my opinion this unitized version has great potential. I like the fact that you can start small and incrementally expand as you learn from experience.

Most new products like this are initially a bit pricey for the mass market, but that will change as this concept becomes more popular and imitators emerge. As we have seen with do-it-yourself EarthBox clones this method appears to have significant DIY potential.

Source: www.youtube.com Website: woollypocket.com

Patrick Blanc: Scientist, Botanist, Artist, Creative Mind

There are a number of videos about Patrick Blanc and his living walls available on the web. I like this one the best. Thanks to Nori of Nori's Stuff for linking to this website.

Even Patrick acknowledges the simplicity of his living wall construction. What is not so simple, however, is his incredible knowledge of the plant palette he uses to create such beautiful living tapestries. He is truly a master of his field.

The gift he gives to all of us is his sharing of how to do it. Thanks to Patrick, these living walls will become ubiquitous in the coming years. Who knows, maybe green hair will be also.

Source: www.inframe.tv

The charismatic Patrick Blanc is a French botanist and the inventor of the Vertical Garden. The Vertical Garden or le mur vegetal, is an ecological art form which has globally reinvented urban landscapes into fascinating displays of vegetation. Using a system that allows plants to grow without any soil, The Vertical Garden allows for natural living beauty in the otherwise most uninhabitable of places such as the walls of buildings both indoors or out. Watering and fertilization are automatic, so it's almost completely hassle free. Patrick, however, is not just simply a designer of Vertical Gardens, but has a highly scientific background and since 1982, has studied the many ways plants adapt to extreme situations at the CNRS, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris.

Patrick recently visited Australia to speak at the Melbourne International Design Festival and to oversee the construction and installation of his latest Vertical Garden in Melbourne Central. InFrame.tv caught up with him for a chat about his work and documented the making of his latest Vertical Wall.

Felt Pocket Plant Wall

Thanks to Patrick Blanc the originator of felt pocket living walls we have consumer products emerging around the world. This is one of them.

Source: plantsonwalls.com

FLORAFRAME Vertical Garden Panels are made from felt pockets that are are non-toxic, durable, and eco-friendly. Felt is the perfect medium for distributing moisture to the plants while allowing the roots to breathe.

Plants On Walls makes planting easy and watering automatic. Your favorite plants can be re-arranged in pockets, allowing for seasonal decorating and special events. The panels are self watering, dry to the touch, and mount in minutes to any interior and exterior wall.

Patrick Blanc's website

Prior posts about Patrick Blanc

From the Design World: Air Cleaning Living Wall Idea

It isn't going to work very well with Ivy (Hedera) but it could with Pothos (Scindapsus). The design needs work but worthwhile pursuing in my opinion. It's a lot better use of creative design time than most of the "green gadgets" I see from the design/lifestyle blogs. Most of them have no relevancy to plant science and the realities of maintaining plants inside buildings.

Source: student.designawards.com.au

Via: Home Tone

Product Description and Principal Function(s)

Elements of Nature is an air purification system designed to work with an indoor plant (ivy). It`s mesh surface allows ivy to grow over itself naturally make every product unique for its user. It is a customizable system that can provide for the needs of specific users.

Elements of Nature combines the power of nature with manmade technologies to achieve the best results possible. it is a functional solution that is also environmentally aware. Its water based filtering mechanism avoids use of disposable metal and carbon based filters. Elements of nature is a better way to clean your air.