If you follow my blog you probably already know how deep is my passion for walls with vertical gardens. I find them very elegant, original and able to decorate every kind of a building, especially those ones located in urban contexts.
For those of you who are not familiar with this topic let me explain that vertical gardens are real walls ‘covered’ by specific plants, and often these works are considered as art masterpieces for their beauty. Nevertheless, vertical gardens are not only beautiful, they are above all useful!
These “green walls” involve various advantages to buildings: an improved thermal isolation, an improved aesthetical impact of the whole building and they also contribute to the urban wellbeing as they are able to catch fine particles. When designing a vertical garden it is always important to keep in mind which is the need of the customer in order to propose the ideal solution and thus it is fundamental to trust professionals to avoid compromising a good green result.
A green wall is a lively system of plants evolving and changing over time, this is why its maintenance is a very delicate operation. It is indeed necessary to know the evolution of the vertical garden to get very good results over time.
The maintenance can be managed by the designing company or by your gardener. According to the plants that have been chosen, different interventions can be planned: yearly, every 3 or 6 months. It can be an extraordinary maintenance if rare and unpredictable events occur or an ordinary maintenance that is carried out regularly. The vegetal part of the wall is the most complex and expensive component to be managed in a green wall and the ordinary maintenance foresees pruning, irrigation and nutrition operations. Among the extraordinary maintenance activities we can find: eradicating possible parasites, substitution of seasonal plants and specific treatments for the vegetation. In a nutshell… as in a real and normal garden.
Maintenance operations are not limited to the green part of the wall but also include the supporting structure, the stratification and the connections among the different technical components, the control of the connecting elements and the chemical-physical stability of materials. There is only one fundamental rule: what is not working has to be replaced or fixed immediately! We have to keep in mind that behind every green wall there are different technical systems: if they are not working correctly and if their activities are not monitored they can lead to serious problems and can cause the partial or total decay of the garden.
Competence, maintenance and the choices of the experts are the basis to enjoy beautiful and functional vertical gardens. I designed myself many green installations all over the world and every time I had to face different challenges according to the building, the position or the place. It is not an easy job, but… it is very satisfying.
Marco Sandrini, Chief Landscape Designer at Sandrini Green Architecture