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Green Walls, Vertical Gardens & Green Curtains · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hi, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily. Today we're going to be talking about
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  green walls or as they're also called vertical gardens.
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  Not to be confused with vertical farms which are NFT or flood and drain hydroponics
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  stacked upon stack upon stack in warehouses.
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  A vertical garden is as it
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  sounds actually vertical so flipped up on
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  its side and put onto a wall and special
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  techniques to allow plants to grow vertically on
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  there so it was a practice that
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  was invented in the late 80s early
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  1990s and popularized by
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  a guy called Patrick Blanc sorry Patrick
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  Blanc he was French he works at the French National Center
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  for Scientific Research and he produced a
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  number of landmark pieces that use this technique
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  and you the technique uses ornamental
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  plants herbaceous plants so not woody
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  plants and it quickly gained popularity and
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  now these vertical gardens these
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  green walls are found in many outdoor and
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  indoor locations so that can be commercial buildings
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  homes all around the world however there.
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  Is a high cost of construction and maintenance and so
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  they're mainly used on buildings and locations where land
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  is expensive and space is limited so examples
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  include Tokyo Shanghai New York London
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  and I've seen them in Hong Kong
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  and London and where
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  else have I seen them I recently saw one there's one just
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  been installed at the training ground for the
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  world's best soccer team Liverpool FC and
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  it looks amazing and it's got the Liverpool
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  crest and the axa training ground it's got
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  all these amazing hookahs and hookahs have got loads of
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  different beautiful colors all of the spectrum so even without flowers
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  you've still got that full spectrum effect looks fantastic
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  and and you know that's what
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  you'd expect from liverpool because they're the they're the best
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  groundsmen the best horticulturalists and the best footballers in
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  the world so shout out to peter and the team who run
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  the the grounds at the axa training
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  ground in liverpool when it comes to indoor
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  green walls they're often tropical plants may
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  and lots of them are what we call epiphytes and epiphytes
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  is a plant that lives on another plant so bromeliads
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  and orchids ferns the so if you go to the rainforest there's a whole you know
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  garden of plants up in the in the in the canopy of the trees most of the plants
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  that you're interested in are up there there's not much on the forest floor
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  because there's no light so these plants are especially adapted to live in.
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  In precarious situations with not much grown media
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  so they make it imperfect so and that
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  the the the green wall is set up so that there's a irrigation first irrigation
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  system that runs down the wall and obviously doesn't escape onto the wall where
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  it would cause mold and and all sorts of things and doesn't escape and fly off
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  onto the floor onto the carpet so you need a specialist,
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  system to hold that all in place all the grown media and normally
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  you would use not much grown media and you probably want a fairly inert
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  one like clay beads you probably wouldn't
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  go for i wouldn't really go for cocoa because it's it's going
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  to hold a lot of it's going to be heavy and it would
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  decompose over time and these these walls are designed to be maintained maybe
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  once a week rather than constantly gardened alpine plants are another one that
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  are good outdoors things like sedums because they can grow in just a crack of
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  a rock you know so they they're perfect when there's not much growing media.
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  There are people who are looking at edible plants for green walls and things like that.
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  However, that's going to need a lot more maintenance and harvest and things
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  like this. So they're not very common.
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  Herbs are probably a good idea. Tumbling tomatoes and things like this.
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  Anything that we grow in a hanging basket, tumbling varieties and things.
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  The other thing about these alpine plants and epiphytes, tropical plants and
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  ferns, is they don't have a strong...
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  Geotropism they don't grow up quickly whereas a
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  lot of plants if you stuck them on the side of a wall they'd all
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  bend up all their leaves would go upwards trying to
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  get to the light and so something like a bromelia is
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  not going to do that quickly so you want to make
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  sure you're not using plants that are just going to look really strange and
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  fighting against that if you put in a normal tomato
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  variety in there it's just going to go and go
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  straight up regardless of what you want it to do
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  so some of the costs can be crazy high you
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  know you could be talking up to a thousand pounds per square meter
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  for a professionally installed green wall so
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  but if you if you do check out the liverpool the liverpool football club one
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  it does look so dramatic that if i was the sponsor axa i'd be so pleased with
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  that because it is just just makes it look amazing so well worth you know if
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  you think about the size of the whole thing it was probably going to cost say if that cost.
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  20 grand that was 20 grand well well spent
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  if you look at the cost of other things in football then that
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  is 20 grand very well spent for the pop for the
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  publicity you'll get from it and you think of every new
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  signing standing in front of it you know when Isaac signs
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  from Newcastle in the summer and he's in front of that
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  green wall it's going to look the business so yeah
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  especially with his right bread bright red shirt and
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  things like that it's going to look it's going to look brilliant so yeah
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  expensive in if you were in a domestic situation
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  a small house but if you're a company that's you
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  know small beans isn't it however you
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  do need a lot of planning as well as money because if
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  they fail there's a lot of egg on face so
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  if you say if you know acme bank plc
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  set up a green wall on their side of their skyscraper in
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  central london people walking past all day you know
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  thousands of bankers all walking past and then it and then
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  all the plants die then that is a big public failure you could be a laughingstock
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  and that has happened i mean i've had former students of mine come to me and
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  say i'm looking after i've been told i've got to look after this green wall
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  on in central london and i said what are they using for fertilizer and then
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  they sent me a picture and it was maxi crop seaweed extract and i'm like.
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  Well that's not going to feed the plants that's probably why they're all dying of nutrient
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  deficiency because you're feeding them seaweed extract which is not even a
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  fertilizer it's a biostimulant so get that
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  out and get something like gold leaf or as it's
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  in the uk liquid gold in in there
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  and start using something that's actually going to help the
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  plants in that sort of recirculatory system another
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  option rather than a green wall is
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  obviously climbing plants like ivy virginia creeper
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  to produce just a a layer of plants on
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  the wall however they are going to attach to the wall and also
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  it's not going to be as dramatic as and as ornamental and
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  have the wow factor that a green wall will have
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  or a vertical garden so but they
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  are a much cheaper low maintenance you don't need a fertigation system they
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  can be planted straight into the soil another option
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  that you could do hydroponically is a
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  a green curtain and these are not very
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  common in europe or in
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  america but they are extremely popular in japan
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  and especially on government buildings and what
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  happens there is you get something like morning glory plant and you
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  sow it in the spring and it
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  forms the vines up wires attached from the bottom of the building to the top
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  of the building and they grow up and then as the summer progresses this green
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  curtain grows up and then the morning glory plants all flower and you get this
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  dramatic flowering of plants all on the side of the government building and this is good because.
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  In the winter you then allow the sunshine in and there's not a blanket of plants
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  in front of the winds but in the summer when you don't want the sunshine coming
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  into the building you've got the plants there the flowers and also the evaporation
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  of all that water will help cool the building and cool the people inside.
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  So I think green curtains should be explored more in western.
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  Western world so you need some sort of high tension wire to do that sort of
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  a living screen and you could train lots of different plants it doesn't have to be morning glory.
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  Interestingly in in the uk we don't
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  tend to plant trees next to to buildings because
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  of the issues with subsidence and the effects of the buildings but
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  in california when i've been there you go to like berkeley university
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  and they've got giant redwoods right next to the buildings so
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  i don't know what the difference is and what the rationale is behind
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  that but it looks amazing as well that's another option but you.
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  Know in the uk no one would dare plant 10 redwoods next
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  to a really expensive university building but in america that's
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  such an issue i don't know why maybe the the the way the
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  building is constructed is different and it doesn't revolt in lead
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  to subsidence so that has been hydroponics daily
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  for today vertical gardens or green walls
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  different to vertical farms and high
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  maintenance but high impact and certainly have the
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  wow factor and then green curtains up
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  high tension steel wires on the outside of buildings popular
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  in japan but i think if you were to install
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  a green curtain you'd get certainly get a wow factor
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  you could get a a lot of
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  publicity might do it here actually we've got a lot
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  of spare office space and
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  we're not doing much with the area outside the building
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  and it's facing a fairly prominent area so i think that'll be a good thing to
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  do have a look at that i'll speak to my colleagues who are involved in the building
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  maintenance they'll probably say no but you know ask for forgiveness not for
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  permission with a lot of these things that's been hydroponics daily for today
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  thank you very much for listening until tomorrow goodbye.