[Greenbuilding] living wall

[Gennaro Brooks-Church]

A forever lush wall in a climate that has seasons will require
non-natives/water/energy/chemicals to maintain the unnatural
environment.

The trick is to build a green wall that looks good year round yet
still follows the seasons. Evergreen ground cover interspersed with
grasses that leave pretty tufts of dry stalks is one way.

Gennaro Brooks-Church

Cell: 1 347 244 3016 USA
www.EcoBrooklyn.com
22 2nd St; Brooklyn, NY 11231




On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 6:49 PM, Steve <steve at greengeek.ca> wrote:
> 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
>
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