What is a living green wall?

What is a Living Green Wall?
A living green wall is a vertical arrangements of plants that don't take up a lot of floor space while looking nice. These are also called living walls, biowalls, modular green walls, or vertical gardens.

What Are the Benefits of Green Walls?
People like beauty and nature is beautiful. More people will notice, talk about, and want to be around green walls. The less greenery around, the more attractive your green wall becomes to people. You will attract more potential clients and team members with a well designed living green wall.

Exterior green walls lower energy costs by reducing the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the building in the summer. In the winter, they insulate the building from heat loss. Plants and the planting base absorb sound, keeping the area behind the green wall quieter.

Interior green walls increase oxygen and filter out pollutants. Studies have repeatedly shown indoor plants increase productivity while reducing stress. Plants regulate air temperature and humidity.

What Are Green Walls Made of?

• The basics of a green wall:
• Structurally strong frame to support the weight of plants and water.
• Waterproof backing to make sure the water stays where is supposed to stay. 
• Modular panels that hold growing mediums: soil, trays, mats, sheets, or structural.
• The plants themselves. 
• Optional, a hydroponic, self contained drip irrigation system going to each of the plants with a reusable water basin that recirculates the water until it is empty. 

Green walls can be as simple as a wire frame that supports small plastic bags filled with soil. They can also be made from structural medium that incorporates soil or non-organic alternatives which have a useful life of over a decade. An increase in the quality of the growing medium causes an increase in the amount of time between medium replacement. Loose soil in bags needs to be replaced every year or two. Structural media can last between a decade to fifteen years.

What Type of Plants Go in Green Walls?
This depends of the green wall's location. An interior green wall consists of a mix of tropical plants. Plants for exterior green walls tend to work better when using plants that would thrive in climate zone slightly north of the area being planted. Choose "easy to grow" plants. Plants with short life spans or plants that must be constantly cared for are not an ideal choice for a vertical green wall.

Can a Green Wall Have a Unique Design?
Yes. These are formed using different plants and maintaining gaps between plants. The simplest way is to get the spacing between plants and dimensions of the wall and to use it to make a color-coded dot diagram. 

How Hard Are Green Walls to Care for?
They are actually quite time consuming. Green walls take a while to acclimate to growing vertically. The plants compete for space and try to grow over one another if not pruned often. An interruption in water could be disastrous for the entire wall. Regular fertilization is required. Unintentional changes in light are often a source of grief. If possible, hiring a professional to maintain your green wall is going to make things much easier.

Interested in Buying a Living Green Wall
If you live in either the Greater Baton Rouge or Greater New Orleans areas and are interested in buying a living green wall, please contact us or give us a call at 225-752-2333.