Vertically

The use of climbing, climbing and leaning plants for the purpose of vertical gardening can rightfully be considered a very ancient way of decorating a space with the help of plants. Indeed, judging by the surviving frescoes and other images, the history of this gardening technique goes back millennia. Nowadays, there seems to be a renewed surge of interest in vertical gardening around the world. The manifestation of this tendency is beginning to be felt in our country, although this kind of garden art is still underestimated in our country.

The widespread use of various vertical gardening techniques makes it possible to quickly and efficiently solve many decorative and utilitarian problems that arise when decorating not only garden, but also urban, office and home space. In addition, to solve them comprehensively, achieving the creation of a beautiful, functional and comfortable living environment for humans. Placing vines on high supports, the formation of trellises and hedges from sheared shrubs and trees allows you to delimit and structure the garden, isolate the garden part or the recreational area.

It is no secret that with the help of climbing plants, it is possible to partially protect the house and the site from adverse external influences, such as too intense solar radiation, strong winds, loud sounds, dust, soot and exhaust gases. Lianas can protect the walls of the dwelling not only from overheating, creating shading, but also from rain. The denser the cover is formed by the leaves, the more precipitation rolls down along them without hitting the walls. There is an opinion that the condition of the walls in the presence of vines can deteriorate, but this is only a special case concerning damage to wooden and plastered walls on the shadow side of buildings under a very dense canopy of foliage.

The environmental benefits of vertical gardening are also important. Vines humidify the air, cool it down, and saturate the surrounding space with oxygen. The cultivation of climbing plants contributes to the formation of favorable microclimate conditions on the site, and most importantly, creates a sense of psychological comfort and security among its owners. Vertical gardening makes it possible not only to decorate and give expressiveness to many garden spaces, but also provides a masking of various unsuccessful buildings, structures and technical structures, both on the site itself and outside it.

Plants used for vertical gardening are of great interest in terms of decorative and useful qualities: the color and texture of the leaves, the originality and aroma of flowers, the taste of their fruits. Lianas can be launched along the trunks and branches of dried up trees, giving them a "second life", as well as woody plants that bloom at different times with the lianas, thus creating an unusual illusion of secondary flowering. Arches and pergolas decorated with climbing plants give solemnity to the entrance area, make it possible to organize an attractive garden whist, arrange a transition between different functional areas of the garden. Lianas allow you to decorate the facades and walls of buildings in an original way, and a pergola or arcade braided with lianas can serve as a natural link between the home and the garden space.

In practice, vertical structures of several basic types are used, which can be installed in different places on the site. These are trellises, trellises and garden screens, fencing off various zones, nets and wall structures that decorate fences, buildings and structures. Arches, arcades, bersot and pergolas used in the design of the entrance group and all kinds of passages. Arches are perhaps the most common vertical structure in the garden.They can be made from a variety of inert materials such as rebar, forged metal or timber. The main thing is that their presence is situational and compositionally justified.

Often, the main object of vertical gardening is a residential building, which provides a significant area for placing climbing plants and hanging ampel compositions in flower pots. Lianas used to decorate a house emphasize its architectural merits and at the same time help to embed an artificially created structure into the natural environment.

Thinking over the green design of the house, special attention is paid to the facade - it is always in sight and the general impression of the site often depends on its appearance. Depending on the design and size of the house, different climbing plants are usually used in its design. So, for a country garden house, they choose compact vines that rise to a small height, or leaning plants, for example, climbing roses. They are planted near the wall near the porch or in the space between windows so that the growing shoots do not interfere.

In bright, sunny places for this purpose, choose low flowering or ornamental-leaved plants, for example, varietal large-flowered clematis or alpine, large-petal or Siberian princes. Specific clematis are also planted: Tangut and gray with golden flowers, paniculata, grape-leaved and Virginia - with small white ones, vineyards and some honeysuckles are used - such as curly, gray, rough, Brown or Telman. Many herbaceous perennials and annuals are suitable: a broad-leaved rank, an intact and fluffy calistegia, asarina climbing, winged tunbergia, sweet peas, fiery red beans, purple and feathery morning glories.

For places with sufficient lighting, choose small-flowered climbing roses - ramblers that can rise to a height of 3-4 m, and bloom profusely on horizontal shoots, for example, varieties "Crimson Rambler" or "Dorothy Perkins", as well as large-flowered - climbers: "Sympathie" , “Flamentanz” or “Alchymist”. For growing climbing roses and tall clematis that are not pruned for the winter, it is convenient to use hinged grates, which, on the eve of winter, can simply be lowered to the ground along with the vines.

In the design of large houses, taller vines are used. They are also suitable for creating shade on a large terrace or for decorating high trellises that enclose the patio area near the house. In this case, such climbing plants are planted, which are quite compact in the lower part, but at the top they grow widely to the sides. The shoots of these vines are directed along the wall with the help of lacing and trellises. It is convenient to fix plants on the wall using wire, strong twine or cord pulled on hooks or screws mounted on the wall, as well as plastic nets or fishing line. You can use gratings and trellises spaced 15-20 cm from the wall to ventilate the wall space.

In such places, high honeysuckle and American honeysuckle are planted, actinidia kolomikta, acute and polygamous, and in the south of Russia - rooting campsis, profuse wisteria, cultivated grapes, fox, Labrusca, forest and rocky. These vines are also suitable for decorating terraces, wall gratings, awnings, pergolas and trellises attached to the continuation of the house. Shoot growth in many vines is quite vigorous, so they may require formative pruning, with the help of which the nature and direction of their growth will be adjusted.

A dense green cover on the walls will be created by the parthenocissus: the maiden five-leaf grapes, reddening in autumn, and the maiden grapes Henry and the maiden grapes tri-pointed, suitable for more southern conditions. You can plant Amur grapes, grapes and Coigne, whose wrinkled leaves are amazingly beautiful. In addition, you should pay attention to such species as petiolate hydrangea, schisandra chinensis, round-leaved and brush-shaped woodworms with yellow autumn foliage, as well as large-leaved and Manchurian kirkazones with large heart-shaped dark green leaves.

Recently, along with the traditional methods of vertical gardening, using the entire available arsenal of climbing, climbing with petioles, antennae and air roots, as well as leaning plants, an alternative direction has been developing quite successfully. It is aimed at the formation of the so-called "living walls", or "phytowalls" from a number of perennial and annual plants, and not necessarily ampelous.

Designed for planting plants are special boards fixed on walls or inclined planes with polymer moisture-retaining materials such as artificial felt, as well as container or modular planting panels. This type of landscaping can be found in many countries of the world, mainly with warm climates, where they are most often used as an original element in the design of urbanized urban areas, office courtyards, as well as for roof gardens, where there is often an acute shortage of space. An important advantage of creating phytowalls is the rapid formation of the volumetric-spatial structure at the facility, and when decorating interiors, the prompt achievement of a picturesque effect.

The founder of the new method of green wall decoration was the French botanist and designer Patrick Blanc, a graduate of the prestigious Paris University, who in the early 90s of the last century began to conduct experiments of this kind in his own garden. A specialist in tropical flora, he has studied epiphytic plant communities for many years on tree trunks and on sheer cliffs. Observations of natural plant compositions suspended in the air suggested to the scientist the idea of ​​an original decorative design of walls, facades of buildings and other vertical structures. Using natural bionic principles, he invented and patented an ingenious method of hydroponic growing of plants rooted in a special polymer substrate.

Patrick's first experiments in creating living walls were successful. The researcher was also a talented designer, he designed and implemented a number of exquisite vertical compositions of living perennial plants, such as, for example, the living wall of the Museum of Primitive Art on Quai Branly in Paris. Some of them cover an area of ​​hundreds of square meters, covering the surface of the walls with a vegetal carpet of different shades of greenery or turning them into colorful flower beds. Other successful compositions, in which, due to the bulk of the living material used, the surface texture is pronounced, resemble the canvases of the impressionists.

When creating phytowalls, many plants are used: from species of tropical and subtropical flora to traditional garden perennials - it all depends on the purpose and location of the composition. In residential and office premises, many of the plants that grow in our pots on window sills are planted in the walls and panels. On city streets and in gardens, the choice is most often stopped on perennials of various types, bush and curtain: heucheras, hosts, tiarellas, cuffs, milkweed, bells, as well as sod ones: saxifrages, sedums, ground cover phlox, thyme, carnations, cleavers and chives many others.

Groups of these plants are picturesquely interspersed with dense plantings of overgrown-type perennials, such as lamiastrum, chiseta or periwinkle.Colored spots, lines and stripes are formed by planting cereals, sedges, ferns, multi-colored or monochrome aromatic herbs, for example, sage, wormwood, catnip, oregano or rue.

Unfortunately, in the temperate zone, not to mention the more northern regions, the construction of living walls from perennial plants is not advisable, since it is associated with the need to transplant them annually into the ground for wintering. However, under these conditions, nothing prevents the placement in vertical gardens of bright floral annuals and a number of vegetable crops that retain their decorative effect during the growing season. The list of such plants is quite large; in fact, it coincides with the assortment of species and varieties used in the creation of traditional flower beds. These can be tagetes, salvias, marigolds, pelargoniums, verbenas and balsams, lilac ageratums and lobelias, as well as, in fact, ampelous cultures: nasturtium, petunias, calibrachoa, tunbergia, bacopa and others. And vertical beds with attractive garden crops, which many now grow in ornamental kitchen gardens, such as ornamental cabbage, salads, Swiss chard, parsley, dill or fennel, will not only decorate their homesteads, but also provide a delicious harvest to the table.

An impressive planting area with an exceptional compactness of structures, biological and ecological features of a large group of species used allow phytowalls to simultaneously perform a number of useful functions. Vertical gardens effectively reduce noise, filter the air, trapping dust, soot and aerosol particles. A large leaf area contributes to humidification and improvement of indoor air quality, and when using phytoncidal plants, living walls can have a healing effect. But the most objective positive effect of phytowalls is to improve the videoecological parameters of the environment and the psychological state of people.

Various designs of living walls are known. A significant part of vertical gardens are arranged according to the principle that Patrick Blanc once peeped in nature. There, plants that do not grow on the soil use tree bark with its cracks and irregularities, undecomposed remnants of plant fibers, mosses and lichen thallus on the rocks as a substrate for fixing, as well as nutrition.

The most common version of the arrangement of vertical gardens involves the construction on a wall, another sheer or inclined surface of a frame frame, usually made of metal. Sheets of polyvinyl chloride, polypropylene or other suitable plastic that are insulating against moisture penetration are laid on it. Felt mats made of natural or, more often, artificial fibers are attached on top of them. Depending on the thickness and material of the mats, they can be used in one or two layers. In fact, in vertical panels, moisture-absorbing mats, in which plants take root, become a substitute for the soil layer.

Planting material is planted in horizontal cuts made in mats, in accordance with a pre-developed sketch: seedlings, and sometimes seeds of annual and perennial grasses, vegetables, and even shrubs. At the same time, the assortment of plant species used can be very extensive, it all depends on the size of the phytowall and the complexity of the plant pattern created on it. Based on the design features of the living wall, plants are placed in cuts with a bare root system, having previously shaken it off the soil, or, less often, inserted into planting nests directly with a soil clod. If necessary, the landing nests are additionally strengthened by shooting them to the shields with staples using a stapler.

Large vertical panels, like bricks, can be made up of separate small blocks.Walls of complex shapes, corner elements are laid out of them, vaults are formed, narrow consoles are assembled. Fitowalls are decorated with metal or plastic frames, inserts of colored or patterned plastic or glass, mirrors. When decorating interiors, living walls made of plants can be combined with a flat aquarium, terrarium or miniature waterfall.

For the cultivation of outdoor ornamental species, vegetable and berry crops, indoor plants, specially made wall pockets are also used, fixed on vertical surfaces. They are made of a waterproof flexible polymer material, a nutrient substrate is placed in them and the plants are planted. By combining blocks from several such pockets, you can decorate the surface of a wall or fence, which, after closing the clumps of plants, will turn into a living green wall.

A thin plastic tube of the automatic drip irrigation system is placed in each pocket; small compositions can be poured from a watering can. But even between waterings, the substrate in the pockets retains moisture for a long time, this is due to its composition and the use of a special sorbing felt material of the inner wall.

In addition to the described vertical gardens, which use fibrous mats, other options for green walls are being developed, metal (like racks), from a metal mesh - gabion type or from ceramic blocks. Various modifications of panels are also produced, equipped with blocks of plastic rectangular containers with a beveled front wall. Plants are planted in a nutritious peat substrate with the addition of agroperlite and fine expanded clay as drainage. In each of the containers, in principle, it is possible to create an environment for growing certain types of plants, but in this case it will be more difficult to care for the modules. Compared to flat phytowalls, such structures are more voluminous, each plastic container holds several liters of substrate. The total weight of the modules mounted on the wall becomes quite impressive.

In addition to those mentioned, there are also various tubular hollow structures that are packed with a plant substrate, such as, for example, the widespread systems of the "Polanter" type. Numerous holes are made in the pipes, plants, ornamental or vegetable, are planted in them. Water is most often supplied from below, and a drip irrigation hose runs along the entire length of the pipe. The tubes can be arranged in a vegetable garden, orchard, or attached several pieces to the walls of buildings, getting green vertical surfaces.

For all living walls, and especially for those on which plants are arranged in tiers and can partially shade each other, it is necessary to provide sufficient lighting. And if in the open air, in the garden or in the city there is usually enough light, then in the room, as a rule, additional lighting is needed. The most commonly used for this purpose are fluorescent and metal halide lamps, which have a significant light output and a balanced color spectrum.

Watering becomes one of the main factors for successful survival and successful vegetation for plants isolated from the usual soil environment. The moisture supply of small vertical modules and panel compositions can be carried out manually, especially if they are located in residential or office interiors. However, usually watering plants on classic phytowalls is carried out using automatic systems, which are equipped with a pump for water supply, micro-drip or oozing hoses, and are also supplied with special filters for water purification. At the base of vertical gardens, containers or trays are usually arranged to collect water and return it to the circulation system.Together with water, the plants on the phytowall are regularly supplied with the necessary nutrient mixtures with the participation of trace elements, since the vertical garden is a hydroponic system.