Living walls in cities refer to ground cover plants than are planted vertically along the side of a building. This can serve to clean the air around a building, reduce the urban heat island effect, and add natural beauty to a sometimes harsh urban landscape.
While living walls may have garnered a great deal of internet praise and hype in the past five years, they are not without problems.
Construction and maintenance can be costly and dangerous, and planning must be done with great care to select appropriate plant species for the wall.
Depending on the soil depth, type, and sun conditions, a variety of species can be suitable. In polluted cities, edible crops may not be the best choice due to air pollution.
Some good ground cover / vine species for living walls are:
Rosary Vine
English Ivy
Vinca
Passion Flower
Trumpet Vine
Wisteria
Bearberry
Creeping Taiwan Berry
Creeping Fig
Creeping Thyme
Sedum Succulents
Sweet Potato Vine
Here are a few photos of some living walls around the world:
By Gordon Joly (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo Credit: “Living Wall at Drexel University” - Terry Robinson – Creative Commons 2.0 –
Plant Resources:
http://portlandnursery.com/plants/groundcovers/
http://www.sunset.com/garden/landscaping-design/how-to-plant-vertical-garden-wall
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