Experimenting with vertical gardens …which wall planter system allows living walls to thrive

I gave the Westfield green wall planting a hard time a couple of months ago – it seemed bland and not varied enough for the size of the wall. I need to slightly amend my criticism. I returned to the Westfield living wall today and the planting design looked more varied now the plants have grown and some species are in flower. Even so Anthropologie’s vertical garden is still the fairest vertical garden of all  – refer to this green wall article for further details.

Like the living wall at the O2 arena (photos here )  Westfield’s vertical garden has had some plant  failures. My husband insists that most people would not notice so I suppose overall the plants are doing OK. Providing a maintenance contract is set up between the supplier and the customer plant failure should not be overly feared. Vertical gardens are a new trend and the industry will continue to learn through trial and error. However if I was engaging one of these complicated  green wall systems I would want a tight maintenance contract to ensure I was not left with a brown green wall. This could be a costly exercise for the installation company.

Meanwhile my vertical garden made from Woolly Pockets are performing beautifully. I know I sell this system so it may seem I have a bias but I can honestly state that my plants are thriving. And I have treated these plants with cruelty. I have been  experimenting with various planting arrangements and in the process I have uprooted plants numerous times (and accidentally left them in the sun with the root system exposed for a couple of days) . The plants are growing, flowering and look very perky indeed. And they are easy to install.