The Low Down On Green Living
June 23rd, 2009
Inspiring Vertical Gardens for Small Spaces
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Space is a precious commodity, especially now that so much of our backyard or balcony space is occupied by containers for growing organic vegetables. For those of you out there getting tight on space, but who still want beautiful flowers and plants to look at, consider a vertical garden. It’s organic art for your indoor or outdoor wall space and is a beautiful way to help filter air naturally and add humidity to your environment. Check out these beautiful and inspiring small vertical gardens. (Read this previous post for a discussion of the differences between green walls and green roofs.)
A vertical garden is essentially a framework of plants placed onto the side of a building or a wall. They can be placed indoors or outdoors, in full sun or shade, depending on what types of plants you want. You can plant all types of flowers and plants on them, including epiphytes, tropical plants, succulents, ferns and even herbs. Check out ELT Living Wall Systems for a great list of plants to try if you want to do it yourself. In general, plants with shallow roots are better, because they have an easier time staying attached to a vertical wall.
The grandfather of vertical gardens is Patrick Blanc, who is a French Botanist and practically came up with the idea. He is also responsible for a long list of building integrated vertical gardens like these stunning examples. His basic system consists of a steel frame for structural integretity, a waterproof backing material to keep water off of the building, and felt fabric for the plants to adhere and grow into. Depending on what type of climate the garden is in, then depends on the necessary humitidy requirements.
Newer companies like ELT Living Wall Systems are starting to come out with wall planting systems like the one above that allow you to plug plants into individualized compartments. ELT now sells a smaller version of their large scale walls through Smith & Hawken now complete with irrigation system. These beautiful units would be a wonderful addition to your kitchen as an herb garden.
This vertical garden is actually made from recycled rain gutters nailed to the side of a house. Suzanne Forsling, who lives in Alaska, came up with this system to keep her salad crops off the cold ground and away from critters, but it’s a perfect way to reuse abandoned gutters and take advantage of empty outdoor wall space. Flowers, herbs, vegetables, and greens could be planted here and if you pair it with a drip irrigation system, you’ve got a perfect vertical planting system.
Here, epiphytes, are stuck into a recessed wall at an installation at the Bardessono Hotel in Yountville, which is a LEED Platinum Certified hotel. Epiphytes, or airplants, attach themselves to objects without need for soil and do not need irrigation, which makes them perfect for such an installation. There is no watering system in place and the plants draw their nutrients and water straight from the air. This fantastic vertical wall was created by Flora Grubb Gardens in San Francisco. Flora Grubb Gardens is also responsible for the framed living wall below, which is like a tiled mosaic of succulents. Built inside of a large and deep frame, the succulents each have their own pocket and are tightly packed in against each other.
And finally, this adorable little wall was created by Jill Bert, who built a large frame from wood and partitioned it off into sections. Inside she is growing herbs and lettuces in a delightful and artistic pattern. This design looks spectacularly easy enough to create out of leftover wood laying around. Another option for a DIY vertical garden is a Succulent and Moss Trellis, found at Lowe’s Creative Ideas. Click here for a complete how-to creation. This one doesn’t require an irrigation system, just occasional misting to keep the moss moist so it provide stability to the succulents.
For more inspiration and some larger installations, check out these vertical gardens at Apartment Therapy. Home examples and concepts courtesy of Suzanne Forsling, and you can read more about her work here.
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Comments
miguel nelson
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:11 pm
nice ideas for vertical gardens, but the best, easiest most healthy way to vertically garden is with Woolly Pockets. check out woollypocket.com , they’re made from recycled plastic bottles, they’re modular and they work inside and outside!
grdngeek
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:17 pm
my friend just told me about woolly pockets! we’d been discussing how to have a garden in a small one bedroom apartment in the city, and after some searching we found that the woolly pocket garden company makes a super simple wall system. we’re putting it up on her deck this weekend!
Bridgette
June 24th, 2009 at 6:04 am
Hey Miguel,
Thanks for the great suggestion. I hadn’t heard of those before. They definitely make for beautiful gardens!
Inspiring Vertical Gardens for Small Spaces | Organic Vida Community
June 25th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
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June 25th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
[...] Inspiring Vertical Gardens for Small Spaces I am a huge fan of unconventional gardens and growing wherever you can. This post gives you an idea of where and how you can have a garden when you have very little space to work with. [...]
Cool Garden Things
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:05 pm
These are great! Totally creative and inspirational. Very exciting post.
GartenGrl at
Planning Plants to Plant
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July 24th, 2009 at 5:01 am
[...] of the more interesting trends in gardening is to grow your plants straight up. A vertical garden can be grown indoors or outside. Growing a variety of herbs, vegetables, fruits, and succulents in [...]
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July 30th, 2009 at 8:20 am
[...] of the more interesting trends in gardening is to grow your plants straight up. A vertical garden can be grown indoors or outside. Growing a variety of herbs, vegetables, fruits, and succulents in [...]
monica garces
August 11th, 2009 at 10:23 am
this work is amazing! I´m trying to do the same. I live in tropical Ecuador and I´m doing it with orquids. Any idea please give it to me.
Julia
November 4th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
I love these gardens, here is a great how to clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaqtpT_cQfw
Harry
December 8th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Monica,
May I suggest looking at our new vertical garden products at http://www.vertical-gardens.net. We believe we have one of the easiest to assemble, as well highest quality vertical gardens. Check it out and let us know what you think….
Cheers,
Harry
Living wall artist
December 12th, 2009 at 8:40 am
That’s a great selection of different vertical gardens. There are so many different ways to build them it’s good to see you’ve covered a nice variety. Nice post!
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Hagan Holmes
March 19th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
At the recent SanFrancisco Garden Show, I purchased a vertical garden for my London home from the company mentioned above, called Vertical Gardens, LLC. The call them Living Tapestries. I used it to cover up an ugly retaining wall. The results are wonderful! It’s like having my own Patrick Blanc greenwall! Very easy to set up and maintain thanks to the automatic watering system. I ordered a custom size from http://www.vertical-gardens.net although they now have dealer in London.
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Ewa
July 28th, 2010 at 5:01 am
oh what a beautiful display of vertical garden ideas - thanks for sharing! I think this is amazing way of better usage of our space.
Cheers,
Ewa
Alma's Hydroponics
July 29th, 2010 at 10:12 am
I love these ideas! I am passionate about hydroponic gardening because the possibilities are limitless. Verticle gardens make so much sense.
Gilbert
July 31st, 2010 at 1:59 pm
The rain gutter idea is my favorite, but unfortunately it doesn’t ever rain in Las Vegas!
Julia The Hydroponic Nutrients Girl
August 3rd, 2010 at 1:49 pm
I’d never heard of epiphytes before. Doesn’t anybody else think it’s magical that they get their nutrients and water out of thin air? I would love to live in a home where all of my walls were alive!
Round Mirrors
September 2nd, 2010 at 11:10 pm
The little wall is just so adorable, Jill Bert is very artistic. Especially its nice to knew the design were made out of leftover wood just laying around. Being resourceful is extra great. I am so impressed.
Herb Garden Kits
September 13th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
This one is a well designed garden. I barely seen this kind of garden, the first one is a floral garden which takes almost the the side of a huge building apartment. It holds true that in gardening, you must be the architect and have the creative vision behind your very own herb garden.
Kevin the 203k loan guy
October 5th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
The rain gutter is particularly great idea for me. Critters are getting to eat more of my veggies than I do. Short troughs will work in my space, The Bardessono Hotel wall is one of the more unique I’ve seen. Creative, pleasing to the eye, not requiring much space and low maintenance all in one.
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Craig UK
January 4th, 2011 at 1:03 am
Love Jill Bert’s idea. Allowing you to grow herbs and salad without giving up floral borders in the garden.
Yvette
January 9th, 2011 at 9:53 am
Vines grown vertically are artful all by themselves as they twist about and their tendrils reach and spiral. We’ve observed, though, that with a little pruning and directional coaxing using garden ties, they can be guided to achieve magnificent form and function.
Floor Fountains
Peter
January 9th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
Great post
I love the idea of a vertical garden. There’s a great temporary building in Kirstenbosch National Botantical gardens in Cape Town where they make use of a vertical wall. It’s made out of a steel grid with the bottoms of 2l Coke bottles being used to hold the plants.
And on top of this they’ve used plants with different shades of green to add a pattern to the walls of the house.
Regards
Peter
Klatte
January 26th, 2011 at 5:33 pm
thanks a lotdo you read mine? “Die neuen Stars aus der Pornoszene sind eindeutig die Amateure geworden.Noch nie waren Amateur Pornovideos so begehrt wie heute.”
Apryl
February 6th, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Is it possible to contact you about using your recycled gutter living wall photo in a book? I am unfortunately in a tight deadline and looking to fill a specific hole. I would love to tell you a bit more about the book - rain gardens. Thanks!!
Apryl
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