Vertical Gardens (Part 2)

The succulent vertical garden from the Metropolitan Home article

The winter blues must have snared me and now it is spring. I'm back. There are good smells in the air. The trees blossom and then send out their beautiful green shoots and the weather warms up. A good time for gardens, a good time for me.

I promised another entry on Vertical Gardens. Recently I visited the Wall at Melbourne Central and was distraught to see that many of the plants had died. Hmmm not a good advertisement for the vertical garden. Why was this I thought to myself, lack of water, lack of nutrients? I don't think lack of light as the plants chosen looked suitable specimens. I had heard that the installation of vertical gardens is difficult and that Patrick Blanc was one of the few who was successful at it but in this case not so. Perhaps not enough had gone into the planning of the maintenance behind the wall. Anyway it alerted me to the difficulty of such a project.

Despite this I have been looking at two little vertical garden projects myself. One for a client whose neighbour has built the most enormous wall between the two properties. In this densely built part of Melbourne it is usual to have a good overhead height fence between properties as we live in terrace houses which run long and thin and share walls and a little backyard privacy is relished. A normal height for a fence would be about 180cm or 6 foot, perhaps with some trellis at the top. This fence is probably 250cm tall ... (I'm not sure what that is in feet) but the result is that it feels horribly forboding and overbearing. So I was discussing with my client what we could do to soften it. We discussed the idea of a vertical garden - she had read an article in the newspaper by designer Jim Fogarty and was quite taken with the idea.

There are a couple of things to overcome before we embark on such a project. The first is that a vertical garden needs to be built out from the fence - a waterproof membrane between the actual vertical structure to protect it, and in front of this a very solidly engineered framework on which to attach the growing medium and plants. As you can imagine that once water is added and plants the weight of the vertical garden is considerable. In my client's little backyard there is a fold out washing line in front of the fence that cannot be moved elsewhere - providing our first problem lack of horizontal space. Jim Fogarty's column referred to the Elmich Green Wall system which does somewhat seem to simplify the whole installation providing a solution to framework issues but doesn't solve my horizontal space problem.

The second challenge is water or rather the lack of it. A vertical garden requires a drip installation system of water and usually nutrients to ensure its wellbeing. Before long we shall be on water restrictions which will not allow for any use of mains water in the garden. Without another source of water either a tank for collection of run-off from the roof or a grey-water treatment system a vertical garden would not last long. Again despite the plethora of various water systems including rain water tanks and grey water treatment systems, space and cost are an issue.

Having said that I was interested to see an article in Metropolitan Home on a succulent vertical garden which they claim requires only occasional spritzing from the hose. It was a rather beautiful installation. I was quite taken with it and am thinking of doing a similar installation as a little roof garden and when I say little I mean little - the roof of my dog kennel - project number 2 of a very minor nature! The dog rarely sits in the kennel and I'm tired of looking at the rather unattractive roof of it. I like the idea that the roof would insulate the structure too - cool in summer, warm in winter - foolishly thinking that my wee pooch will suddenly prefer the kennel over the house. I also like the idea of a little test run before unleashing (ooh excuse the pun) myself on clients with my ideas.

So as you can see I'm still very much working through the practicalities myself but hopefully shortly I shall come to a suitable solution for the aforementioned fence and be able to feast my eyes upon an abundant succulent roof!

Vertical Gardens - the work of Patrick Blanc (Part 1)

The gardens of Patrick Blanc clockwise from top left - Caixa Forum Madrid, Musee du Quai Branly Paris, Siam Paragon Shopping Center Bangkok, detail Musee du Quai Branly, Paris

I'm not sure when it was that I came across the vertical gardens of Patrick Blanc but I was immediately struck by their beauty and quite intrigued by their construction and the ideas behind them.

The vertical garden probably most known by Australians but ironically the least seen is in the Qantas first class lounge in Sydney. A collaboration with the designer Marc Newson many images of it have been displayed in various publications. Alas alack I am unlikely ever to set foot in the vicinity. So it was with particular delight that I saw as part of the Melbourne International Design Festival that Patrick Blanc would be creating a work in one of Melbourne's shopping centres and in addition giving a lecture on his work.

So one cold Friday night a couple of weeks ago I set off to attend Patrick Blanc's lecture. I had thought that perhaps his work was a bit of a niche interest but no - the lecture theatre gradually filled to almost overflowing with interested Melburnians.

He was duly introduced and took the stage - a visual delight in a black leather suit, fetchingly set off with a white shirt with a green leafy pattern and the whole ensemble topped and tailed by green shoes and black hair with a slash of green through it - it was worth leaving my warm home for the mere sight of him!

Patrick Blanc

With great energy he took the stage and began his talk on his gardens. He was quick to point out that he is not a designer but a "scientist". A botanist in fact who has travelled the world primarily in tropical regions and has studied the plants that grow on steep slopes and in the understory of tropical rainforest.

The fascinating thing about all this is that many of the plants he spoke of are often those most cosseted by us in our gardens and here they were, some living in quite extreme positions and conditions with neither great soil conditions nor constant water. As many of the photos were taken in tropical regions some of these plants are more commonly known as "houseplants" and are used for his indoor vertical gardens in cooler climates but others were quite hardy. Some of these common plants included hydrangeas, begonias, alocasias, cycads and various ferns.

He illustrated his talk of how nature's vertical gardens grow showing us examples of some very common plants which take on a quite extraordinary and somehow more beautiful arrangement when tumbling down a rock wall or similar.

It reminded me of how useful it is to know not only where plants originate but where they naturally exist. And for many it is on steep slopes particularly when they come from countries where any flat land has been cultivated for centuries confining the natural flora to the non-arable land. The other thing to note of course is that with plants taken straight from nature you are working with species rather than hybrids which are often developed to enhance characteristics that we prize more highly in our garden plants such as flower colour and size.

The Vertical Garden at Melbourne Central

So a few days aftern the lecture I visited Melbourne Central to view his latest work. As it had been completed only the day of the lecture I was keen to see it before it was fully grown to see how the entire structure works. I thought it would be a lot more sparse than it was - but it is planted much like a show garden is for a flower show - with plants at a much closer spacing than you would normally plant. Overall I thought it beautiful but was disappointed in the scale of the work. The shopping centre is vast and is dominated by a the central shot tower which is encased in a glass dome. The tower is at the centre of the circular, layered shopping centre and immediately my mind ran away with me thinking how one would look cascading down the side of the tower or around the sides of the shopping centre itself much like the one at the Paragon Shopping Center in Bangkok. Nevertheless I am excited that it is there and look forward to seeing how it grows and develops over time. The vertical garden certainly adds more to a shopping centre than a few mother in law's tongue plants in a planter or even worse dust covered synthetic ones!

Next post in Part 2 I intend to look a little more closely at the construction and the plants used so stay tuned!

Courtyard Gardens

"City Calm" designed by Acres Wild

I love a little garden I think they are a treat they are remarkably easy to transform and this is very satisfying. A little patch of nothingness can very simply and often without tremendous expense be transformed into a place which offers a pleasant environment into which to take refuge, relax and revive oneself whether it be reading a book, sharing a meal, taking a nap or indulging in a little green fingered work.

They are often tricky spaces in that they often have to deal with a multitude of requirements in a very limited space. Not only those requirements of eating and relaxing but also practical ones too such as storage, washing lines, barbecues, sandpits and rain-water tanks.

When I started thinking about what I would write about courtyard gardens my initial thoughts were that it would be a practical discussion on the organization of a space, what works best in a small space, what to keep in and what to leave out and the need often to control one’s lust for plants. However as I’ve started to write I find myself thinking more about how I often find as I leaf through the pages of magazines that courtyard gardens which often require a lot of hard landscaping to resolve the multiple use issues seem sometimes seem to use plants as if they were a hard landscaping material themselves. As a result the spaces feel constrained and almost devoid of natural forms that for me, are conducive to relaxation in a garden space.

English writer Mirabel Osler wrote a book about her garden experiences with the delightful title “A Gentle Plea for Chaos”. Not that she was nor am I suggesting that chaos is suitable for a courtyard garden but I am fond of a little organized disorder if that makes sense. This is not an argument against formality in gardens but personally I love formality in contrast with informality. Courtyard gardens are formal in that they are always very defined spaces and for me the creation of a pleasant environment involves the contrast between the formal and informal or the hard landscaping and the soft.

Colour, form and texture contrast in "City Calm"

One of my favourite courtyard gardens is designed by “Acres Wild” English duo Debbie Roberts and Ian Smith (who were my tutors when I was studying garden design in London). This design, City Calm successfully combines the formal and the informal into what I consider to be quite an inspired design. Their use of hard landscaping and formal plant forms contrast with the layered textures of looser plant forms such as ferns, bamboos and grasses. This creates a beautifully balanced environment. While Debbie and Ian no longer teach you can still feast your eyes and pick up a few pointers from their beautiful work featured on their website.

Contrast of the formal and informal forms