A living wall or vertical garden can be incorporated into the design of your new build or renovation project. Apart from the benefits listed below you can even use them to grow kitchen herbs and strawberries!
1. Attractive environment – Green walls have a soothing effect. I think it’s true to that that, without knowing exactly why, we are more relaxed when surrounded by greenery. There are plenty of studies that show that in a commercial context worker performance improves when they are in a lush green environment and I am sure there are benefits to our health and mood by having greenery in and around our home.
2. Healthier air quality – Living walls absorb pollutants and toxins.
3. Passive Cooling – evapotranspiration in the summer cools the environment around the living walls meaning lower energy bills without burning fossil fuels (or money).
4. Better acoustics – green walls absorb sound which would otherwise bounce off hard walls.
5. More texture – it’s nice to live in a space with texture. So often we see hard designs and hard materials being used everywhere which is unpleasant when compared to a variety of textures. Green walls have a softening effect on the design.
6. Improved insulation – a green walls adds considerably to the insulation so once again that means a home that is warmer in winter and cooler in summer without burning fossil fuels or money.
In urban environments green walls on public and commercial buildings have number of important benefits
1. Increased bio diversity – they encourage insect and bird life
2. They can help protect the structure
3. They improve social environment with improved health of people living in the vicinity and less vandalism.
Key Considerations if you are thinking of using a living wall
1. The kind of system to use: wire trellis systems. Hydroponic (i.e. the plants roots in a man made substrate), natural soil, pocket plant……
2. What species of plant to use
3. Design Considerations: the weight, the pipework, (irrigation, drainage) and the space taken up
4. Maintenance
