[Greenbuilding] living wall

[Steve]

Regarding the Patrick Blanc type green walls:

As I understand it, one of the main reasons non-native plants are used
is because unless you live in a very temperate area, most native
plants go dormant over the winter in response to dropping
temperatures; inside they wouldn't do this. Last year I spoke with a
local green wall expert named Patrick Poiraud from Green Over Grey
(http://www.greenovergrey.com/) and he confirmed this. They do Patrick
Blanc style walls for both interior and exterior installations in
Victoria and Vancouver, and interior installations in other cities
across Canada.

I first heard about this type of wall system several years ago but the
best example I've seen was in 2009, on this website:

http://www.re-nest.com/re-nest/green-tours/green-tour-matthew-and-emmas-eco-environment-084775

The owner of this green wall has a blog about the subject at
http://diygreenwalls.blogspot.com/ which has tons of great info,
including a time lapse video of the wall construction, and information
on irrigation requirements.

I've had the chance to inspect several Patrick Blanc style green walls
up close, and from what I've seen not all are fully hydroponic, some
use pockets of soil for the growing media and just use the felt to
keep the soil moist.

Compared to the intensive green walls I'd encountered before, this
type of system is far lower maintenance, and cheaper to construct.
Every installation I've seen with just soil in trays was a maintenance
nightmare, such as the one at Dockside Green here in Victoria. It
started out lush and beautiful, but did not last. Within a year or so,
there was nothing left but the empty plastic trays with a few bits of
dried soil and dead plant matter clinging to it. I've heard they're
going to be replacing it with a new system this year.

The best performing exterior system I've seen, aside from vines on a
trellis, was composed of 12"x12"x4" plastic crates with bagged soil
held in place with metal bars, which should be reasonably simple to
replicate, and not too difficult to mount.

Here are some details on a few different systems, including CAD
drawings of the GSky system:
http://www.impactlab.net/2009/05/16/living-wall-systems/

And a mounting diagram from GSky:

http://gsky.com/CAD/JPG/GSky%20Green%20Wall%20Spec%20Drawing-6-p-2.png

Hope this helps!
-Steve
-- 
http://www.greengeek.ca