Our first encounter with a “living wall” was the giant installation in the atrium of the University of Guelph in Canada. Everyone’s always asking whether they can get a similar wall of greenery for their own home, and now we have an affirmative answer. ELT (Elevated Landscape Technologies) Easy Green has designed a modular indoor/outdoor living wall panel system for residential consumers.
ELT sells a number of different set-ups for starting a wall garden (all made of HDPE recyclable plastic), as well as stand-alone two-sided room dividers and brackets for installing flora on sloped roofs. The frames can be pre-grown or planted after installation.
The company offers suggestions on their site for plant varietals and fresh herbs that might grow well in an Easy Green. These include begonias, orchids, sedum, ferns, ivy, and all the staple cooking herbs. ELT’s products are quite reasonably priced and offer so many benefits in terms of aesthetics, physical health, and design versatility. Imagine a whole wall of orchids growing in your house! It’s a whole lot cheaper than an original painting, and yet so much more…original!
You can see several examples of their recent work below (including one they just did in Singapore, pictured in the somewhat foggy image), and there’s much more here.
+ ELT Easy Green
+ ELT Green Roofs
That looks so lovely. I would like to have one (or two) on the sides of my terrace.
It seems quite expensive though, that’s the only drawback in my eyes.
I see a number of horticultural issues, especially around lighting, for which ELT gives no suggestions. I foresee that it would be labor-intensive for the owner. That said, what a glorious entranceway display!
Think BUGS inside your home. All sorts of critters root around in healthy soil, as should be the case. Just not indoors please. A bad idea.
But what you’re buying doesn’t include the plants or soil. All you get is the trays to lay plants in. =/ That many plants would cost more than the trays themselves which are on the pricey side…
Those are absolutely stunning. I will have to get myself a few of those for my own home. I just wonder, how easy is it to make one of these yourself.
I live in Rome and would love to see a Renaissance of Green to clean help up the smog….
ELT’s Living walls are definitely beautiful, and are great conversation pieces, but be prepared for some serious maintenance. The growth medium that these panels require (standard potting soil) does not stand the test of time, I’ve found. I’ve had to supplement the soil as part of regular maintenance, and that’s a real pain!
For a better solution, look into G-Sky’s wall panels. They seem to use a more rigid organic material that allows the water to reach the plants, without turning to mush – or simply eroding – over time. See the Vancouver Aquarium for a cool example of their work. Not sure what the website is….
This is Chad Sichello, President of G-Sky Inc. Thanks for mentioning us in this blog, our website is http://www.g-sky.com for those of you what would like to look into our Green Wall Panels system. Best Regards, Chad Sichello / G-Sky Inc.