Vertical Gardening: An Evolving Eco-Friendly Living Concept

Vertical Gadening The concept of “Vertical-Gardening” is primarily inspired from plants in rainforest canopies and plants grown naturally on the rocks around a waterfall. This concept application in urban areas was visualized and further developed as ‘green roofs’ and ‘planted walls’.

Vertical gardening offers several advantages and helps environment in many ways. This is a unique planting style helping in reducing pollution and rainwater run-off. It offers a man-made habitat for wildlife in urban areas. It also initiates a process of natural insulation for buildings.

As more and more cities are becoming concrete jungle, vertical gardening offers an opportunity for increasing the vegetation cover and helping in reducing the probability of localized flooding. Findings of a research conducted by the ‘Centre for Sustainable Development’ at the ‘University of Cambridge’ reveals that” a layer of vegetation can reduce heat loss from buildings, cutting the wind chill factor by 75% and heating demand by 25%”.

Gardening Up The Wall Vertical gardening is not only eco-friendly but also a tool for converting buildings in to beautiful picturesque spots. It also helps in reducing noise pollution in cities .It is a kind of screen that by and large has a positive impact on the health of people.

Vertical gardening is gaining popularity across the globe and green roofs are becoming an accepted norm for flat-roofed buildings. In select developed countries legal bindings are also being introduced and such buildings need to adhere to a defined ratio of green walls and roofs.

Vertical gardening or gardening on roofs and walls involves a deviation from traditional plant growing approach that specifies requirement of soil for support and water and nutrients for growth. Introducing alternative sources will also give the same results. “Hydroponics” is such an alternative that is becoming extremely popular now days.

The conventional vertical gardening involves methods that help plants grow up a wall. You must have seen “Ivy” and “Clematis” growing in this manner. But hydroponics has changed the way of using new technology with more innovative approach. Plants are integrated in to the walls and roofs and then the structures, containers, and supports are added for planting.

Roof gardening Introducing new concepts in vertical gardening is bringing phenomenal changes in the styles of roof-gardening as well. Generally, the roof-gardens are based on container gardening methods and it becomes really important to provide extra support to the roof if normal soil is to be used for plantation. With the advent of new lightweight growing media such as “LECA (Light Expanded Clay Aggregate) roof gardening is moving in to a new era. With these new concepts even a “grass area” and “drought-resistant- plantation” (GRP) has also become possible.

Plantation up a wall seems to be a difficult task at the first instance and stopping roots from penetrating deep in to the walls appears to be the biggest challenge. Fortunately the problem is not as potential as it seems to be. You just need to provide a water supply mechanism in such a way that the plants do not require its roots to keep growing in search for water. A lightweight metallic structure lined with PVC and rot-proof felt when added to an automatic watering system with fertilizers will certainly ensure such wall-plantations. Patrik Blanc, a UK based designer has recently conceptualized and demonstrated such a mechanism in place for planting up a wall with no problems.

Technology has taken this concept even further and readymade planted wall panels are now available. You simply have to mount such panels up the wall and plug an irrigation system in to put the vertical gardening in action. You can even install a vertical garden indoors and connect it to a reservoir for water trickling down the grid of plants. (Contd.)

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