On my balcony, I'd like to establish a green wall.

It seems to me that one can either set up rows of containers, filled
with soil, or establish growth on some sort of vertical medium.

With containers you get plants that grow more or less normally (i.e.
upwards), but they seem to look quite straggly, and the containers are
quite visible.

With plants that have established themselves in a vertical medium of
some kind, you need to choose species that are actually happy to do
that, and won't for example be weakened because their stems are trying
to grow through 90 degrees.

Mosses seem to be more suited to vertical growing and require less care
to keep in an attractive condition.

I'd be interested to hear any experiences or advice.

Thanks,

Daniele

On 1 Aug 2021 20:29, real-not-anti-spam-address@apple-juice.co.uk (D.M.
Procida) wrote:
> On my balcony, I'd like to establish a green wall.
>
> It seems to me that one can either set up rows of containers, filled
> with soil, or establish growth on some sort of vertical medium.
>
> With containers you get plants that grow more or less normally (i.e.
> upwards), but they seem to look quite straggly, and the containers are
> quite visible.
>
> With plants that have established themselves in a vertical medium of
> some kind, you need to choose species that are actually happy to do
> that, and won't for example be weakened because their stems are trying
> to grow through 90 degrees.
>
> Mosses seem to be more suited to vertical growing and require less care
> to keep in an attractive condition.
>
> I'd be interested to hear any experiences or advice.
>

No personal experience but was looking at this the other day which may
help.
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=547

--
Regards.
Bob Hobden

On 01/08/2021 19:29, D.M. Procida wrote:
> On my balcony, I'd like to establish a green wall.
>
> It seems to me that one can either set up rows of containers, filled
> with soil, or establish growth on some sort of vertical medium.
>
> With containers you get plants that grow more or less normally (i.e.
> upwards), but they seem to look quite straggly, and the containers are
> quite visible.
>
> With plants that have established themselves in a vertical medium of
> some kind, you need to choose species that are actually happy to do
> that, and won't for example be weakened because their stems are trying
> to grow through 90 degrees.
>
> Mosses seem to be more suited to vertical growing and require less care
> to keep in an attractive condition.
>
> I'd be interested to hear any experiences or advice.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Daniele
>
I was lucky enough while on a visit to California to attend a talk by
Patrick Blanc on green walls. this he started by giving a run down on
plants found naturally on cliffs and vertical surfaces, Ferns and Hostas
were among those mentioned. But there are lots
Key to success is a good support system strong enough to support the
weight of plants and wet growing medium, he uses layers of capillary
matting sandwiched between weed membrane a stainless steel grid, the
constant drip irrigation in his schemes is normally supplied by the
condensation from aircon units with weak fertilizer added, run off is
collected at the bottom and recycled to the top.

My own experience is a piece of capillary matting which takes excess
water from the matting in my mist unit and guides it down into a bucket
(from where it can be emptied) this is covered in ferns a mix of
maidenhair and harts tongue and looks fantastic!

--
Charlie Pridham
Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk