About the Landscape Juice Network

Founded in 2008. The Landscape Juice Network (LJN) is the largest and fastest growing professional landscaping and horticultural association in the United Kingdom.

LJN's professional business forum is unrivalled and open to anyone within within the UK landscape industry

LJN's Business Objectives Group (BOG) is for any Pro serious about building their business.

For the researching visitor there's a wealth of landscaping ideas, garden design ideas, lawn advice tips and advice about garden maintenance.

Vertical Gardens

In gardening there are trends which come and go like fashion. The trend for the last couple of years has been for vertical gardening. Walls of green which lots of people think is new. I feel we have always had 'vertical' gardening as climbers have fulfilled that role for centuries. I know there are new systems to plants in pockets up a wall but is it really new?

You need to be a member of Landscape Juice Network to add comments!

Join Landscape Juice Network

Votes: 0
Email me when people reply –

Replies

  • You sound as bewildered as me! How are things up North. I see 'your painting' is open for public inspection now!!

    Jonathan Wild said:
    Hi Claudia,

    The only 'new' thing about this is that there are some gullible homeowners (and some designers!) who really believe that vertically planted walls are the way forward!!

    It is a ridiculous concept and vies for the top prize of ridiculousness (is there such a word?!) with coloured glass chippings and bark!

    The only plants (climbers apart!) that will grow in a vertical plane are pretty specialised - and certainly not suited to growing in a 'normal' growing medium in a British back yard. Epiphytes and alpine cliff dwellers might be happy - but for most other 'terrestial' plants you are just going to submit them to a long slow death!

    I'm afraid this is yet another product of the show garden scene - dellusions of reality!
  • Claudia, with a background in construction there are now systems of retaining walls which are known as green walls - not an eco / enviro green but green in appearance due to planting, they are generally steep slopes where soil is held in place at the face of the wall which allows planting to naturalise - these type of walls are relatively new (15 or so years) but as you rightly say vertical gardening is surley an extremely old concept. Would the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon fall into this type of vertical garden
  • The plants are not new but the systems that make these vertical 'gardens' possible are and that is called innovation, not sure if it is progress but it is innovative. Patrick Blanc's work in Paris is stunning in my opinion. In fact I was at the new Westfield shopping centre in White City, London on Saturday and the vertical garden wall there is a real plus. Certainly better than the evergreen 'Leylandii' screen that would have be put there in the 70's and 80's.
  • Yes Kevin I agree that they are better than Leylandii screen and Patrick Blanc's work is great but I feel sometimes we are duped into believing things are 'new'. In a way blocks of flats with balconies and climbers up walls could have been the first 'verical gardens'.

    Kevin Munt said:
    The plants are not new but the systems that make these vertical 'gardens' possible are and that is called innovation, not sure if it is progress but it is innovative. Patrick Blanc's work in Paris is stunning in my opinion. In fact I was at the new Westfield shopping centre in White City, London on Saturday and the vertical garden wall there is a real plus. Certainly better than the evergreen 'Leylandii' screen that would have be put there in the 70's and 80's.
  • Yes Michael- the hanging gardens of Babylon are the first examples of this and go to a tropical rainforest and see the orchids hanging down and all the monkeys swinging on their vertical gardens!

    Michael Toon said:
    Claudia, with a background in construction there are now systems of retaining walls which are known as green walls - not an eco / enviro green but green in appearance due to planting, they are generally steep slopes where soil is held in place at the face of the wall which allows planting to naturalise - these type of walls are relatively new (15 or so years) but as you rightly say vertical gardening is surley an extremely old concept. Would the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon fall into this type of vertical garden
  • Not something I would like to see in your everyday garden but Blancs work is quite stunning but a little worried as he has stated that they could be created everywhere - in parking lots, train stations and all "those difficult spaces" where you don't expect to see greenery!
  • I think growing vertical is great!

    Listen to that:
    first there is a simple product that I will sell later on to help doing that- lots of intrest from retailers.
    now:
    1. I used in one case in a garden show a garden for children. we made and painted colord stepping stones and near them there where 3 big vertical pipes with holes in different hight. 1.8m 1.4 and 1 metre.
    each one covered in different color of flowers.

    2. Another place I used it was a small garden with many palm trees, we wanted to add more color abut the soil was full of roots and nothing could grow (we tried) So near a wall I attached a pipe (22cm wide, 2 metre high) that was covered with flowers- customer was very happy- and it did look great.

    3. I also worked as a consultant for a famous garden in israel that is used for weddings and parties.(wonderful job). as a feature we build 2 pipes like that but this time into a concrete blocks with white flowers.
    It had a n irrigation system inside. It looked great at night.

    4. I had customers that bought a house with a small garden- and wanted to grow just food. I had to dig out a beautiful tropical garden. We planted many fruit trees. and I used my 'blooming posts' that i had from the show garden. I visited that garden 8 weeks later- they were so happy with that. it had in it a mixture of veg/herbs and flowers- it looked great but they said it is so attractive to pick and taste the veg as they are just in front of their 5 years old daughter.

    Funny, (a day before I left Israel nearly 2 years ago) I heard that someone described how to build something the same on the internet but than he explained that he copied it from the one I did in that 'wedding garden'.

    In agriculture there is lots of vertical growing - and it is great for small spaces, green houses veg or flowers.

    Ya I agree some will say it is too different but so as hanging baskets.

  • Not seen your etching yet Mr Wild ! Have been meaning to go though but time etc... Patterned paving-don't you just love it!

    Jonathan Wild said:
    This is one of those 'arguments' that could run and run!
    I agree with Kevin re Blancs work in Paris - but on a smaller scale I really don't think these things work at all well.
    They are as alien as patio heaters and patterned paving, and as we have all just about agreed on - as new as the 're-invention' of fire pits and 'organic' gardening!

    Claudia - have you been to see my etching yet?! I'm looking for new commisions!
  • I agree Ofer that verical is good but I don't think it is 'new'

    Ofer El said:
    I think growing vertical is great!

    Listen to that:
    first there is a simple product that I will sell later on to help doing that- lots of intrest from retailers.
    now:
    1. I used in one case in a garden show a garden for children. we made and painted colord stepping stones and near them there where 3 big vertical pipes with holes in different hight. 1.8m 1.4 and 1 metre.
    each one covered in different color of flowers.

    2. Another place I used it was a small garden with many palm trees, we wanted to add more color abut the soil was full of roots and nothing could grow (we tried) So near a wall I attached a pipe (22cm wide, 2 metre high) that was covered with flowers- customer was very happy- and it did look great.

    3. I also worked as a consultant for a famous garden in israel that is used for weddings and parties.(wonderful job). as a feature we build 2 pipes like that but this time into a concrete blocks with white flowers.
    It had a n irrigation system inside. It looked great at night.

    4. I had customers that bought a house with a small garden- and wanted to grow just food. I had to dig out a beautiful tropical garden. We planted many fruit trees. and I used my 'blooming posts' that i had from the show garden. I visited that garden 8 weeks later- they were so happy with that. it had in it a mixture of veg/herbs and flowers- it looked great but they said it is so attractive to pick and taste the veg as they are just in front of their 5 years old daughter.

    Funny, (a day before I left Israel nearly 2 years ago) I heard that someone described how to build something the same on the internet but than he explained that he copied it from the one I did in that 'wedding garden'.

    In agriculture there is lots of vertical growing - and it is great for small spaces, green houses veg or flowers.

    Ya I agree some will say it is too different but so as hanging baskets.

  • "Vertical" Gardens are the way forward for greening the city in more than one context. Barcelona has the highest population density in Europe, and it is increasing rather than decreasing. There are few large open spaces left that can sustain vegetal life, and they are not faring that well.

    If we wish to contiue to expand the amount of planted surfaces, we have little left but roofs and walls.

    Now, this kind of planting has rather taxing maintenace requirements, let alone cost and construction specification. Soil, steel, membranes and watering systems do not hold together for too long if left alone. The capital investment is huge if you factor in an acceptable life span.

    In its extreme form you can find Mosaiculture projects, where thousands, even millions of tiny plants are planted on huge structures for sculptural effect. The net outcome is a steel-framed building that resembles an animal, a famous landmark or a logo at huge cost, but with a very limited useful life, between 6 months to a year, and with some risks.

    Saving water in the UK may have been nonsense a few decades ago, but not necessarily today, even though water was a precious comodity many centuries ago. Equally, Vertical gardens should not be dismissed as nonsense. Changes in our environment will be pushing us in the way of new-old solutions to new-old problems.

    The question is: how to do it elegantly and efficiently?
This reply was deleted.

Trade green waste centres

<!-- Google tag (gtag.js) --> <script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-WQ68WVXQ8K"></script> <script> window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'G-WQ68WVXQ8K'); </script>

LJN Sponsor

Advertising

PRO Supplier

At Centurion Club in St Albans, course manager Andy Garland knows every inch of the golf course because he helped build it from the ground up. Today, as the club continues to host some of the biggest events in professional golf, Andy relies on…

Read more…