Take gardening to new heights!!! or...is gardening driving you up the wall?

Back in July I did a post about vertical gardens. 

Living in an inner-city apartment with limited balcony space I really miss being surrounded by the greenery that a courtyard or garden provides. Up here on the top floor my poor west facing balcony is hammered by north-easters and south-westers and wind from every other blustery direction. I have 2 large pots with 3m high olives trees that have almost had their leaves stripped from their branches and their roots are loose in the pots from being whipped about so much; the only things that is doing well out there is the bowl of succulents. They seem to thrive in the wind and heat!

I'm not really an indoor 'pot plant' kind of person....so I needed an outlet for my green thumbs. Something that would bring a bring a splash of green indoors but not take up too much space. So I decided to join the craze and go up with a vertical garden.

Looking around there are a number of companies doing vertical gardens kits and many can now be purchased online or in hardware stores and gardening centres. Given that I was going to place my garden in my living room I needed to find a vertical garden that suited my situation.

The kit I decided on was Vertiscape.

This system uses solid wire 'cages' that hold a woven plastic fabric bag that is filled with potting mix. It's recommended that you mix 'perlite' through the potting mix. This helps to bulk out the mix but also makes it lighter so the finished cage is not too heavy.

The kit comes with metal bracket which are fixed to the wall. Of course I couldn't just fix my garden to the gyproc wall...that would have been a disaster! When filled the baskets are quite heavy and then there was the watering requirements! 

I decided that I needed to create a contained unit that would contain the vertical garden system and also stop water from penetrating through to the wall behind. There also needed to be a container to catch the overflow from the  watering process.

Using 15mm ply I made a frame 2.4m high and 50cm wide. This picture shows the bare frame with the brackets and baskets in place. The ply frame was undercoated then given two coats of an outdoor weather shield paint in a satin black finish. I then lined the inside of the frame with a heavy plastic liner which was just bought off a roll from Bunnings Hardward. I stapled the plastic in place then used heavy duty black gaffer-tape over the staples to secure the plastic.

This picture shows a couple of the baskets planted up and placed in the frame. You can see the plastic liner which was taped in place before the metal brackets were screwed in place. 

Having a background in horticulture I really should have known better but I decided to experiment with a number of different types of plants......WRONG DECISION!!!!!!

You really need to plan your garden and what style your looking for. If you go for the lush green rainforest look (which is what I wanted) go for ferns and the like...plants that you would find 'in a rainforest'.

Don't be tempted to mix in a few succulents or other plants (which I did, because I liked the flowers at the time and thought they added that something extra).....it doesn't work! If you want succulents, stick to succulents. 

It's also important to try to have a 'planting scheme'. I've worked out that using  5 or 6 different plants in multiples of 2 or 3 planted together works well. The wall has been up for about 6 weeks now and I've had to replace a few of the plants. Small cross-shaped cuts are made in the bags to allow for the plants. These can be planted from the front, or passed through from the inside as you add more potting mix to fill the bag. As I said, this was a bit of trial and error but as the weeks passed I saw what plants did well and just replaced the ones that didn't. I wanted the garden to look lush and full right from the beginning but this also isn't the case. You need to be patient and let the plants settle in and establish their root systems before they start to grow.

So after a month or so the plants have settled in and the green wall is looking pretty good. Overflow water is captured in a container which is located in the base of the frame disguised by a piece of black perspex. This is held in place by velcro so that it can be easily detached. I use a small watering can to water each basket, starting at the top and working my way down. The water trickles through each basket and any excess collects in the container in the base and is disposed of....you need to keep an eye on this so it doesn't over-flow!

It certainly adds a bit of green to our living room and doesn't take up too much space!!! Also, having plants seems to help clean the air and there doesn't seem to be so much dust...which has to be a good thing!

So if your up for the challenge why not create your own green wall. I've used this system in a line vertically but it could easily be done as a square or rectangle...it just depends on how you place the brackets. There are many systems available and if you have an outside wall or fence a vertical garden would create a real design statement!