Going Really, Really Green

The Ultimate in Vine-Covered Cottages

When my daughter was earning her theater technical degree at UNCA, she designed a set for a rather bizarre theatrical production of “Hansel and Gretel at Auschwitz” or something like that, which I never saw and didn’t really want to see. She brought home the ugliest of creepy metal trees made out of welded rebar and promptly installed it out by the footed bathtub from her production of “Hair,” which we now use as the final hole for the top nine disc golf course.

Now, we live in a lovely chestnut cabin on some seriously ‘graded’ acreage next to the Pisgah National Forest. So it’s not hard to imagine that I’ve no particular use for an ugly rebar tree. Yet that was six years ago, and today that ugly metal tree is one of my favorite lawn sculptures. The English ivy she planted around the base has grown up to cover the trunk in variegated dark and light green lushness. Wild pink roses and Japanese honeysuckle now compete for sunlight over the entire top and branches, trailing almost to the ground in places and spectacular in bloom.

So I’m not all that adverse to ideas about how to combine modern, recycled materials and technology with real natural greenery and flowers to make interesting homescapes. The eastern wall of this cabin is half rock, and when we moved in it was covered in ivy. Made for a really pretty picture, but we had to pull it all down when we discovered it was rotting the siding, providing shelter for a variety of stinging pests, and crumbling the rocks.

So it caught my eye when I saw an article about the ‘Vertical Garden’ walls of botanist Patrick Blanc in an interview with him for Ping. I’ve just gotta get me some of those!

The system is sort of hydroponic. A metal framework onto which PVC plastic is attached and covered with felt. Regular tap water mixed with something like Miracle Gro drips from the top of the wall and keeps the felt wet, and all sorts of plants grow just fine without any soil! This keeps the walls light-weight enough to put up almost anywhere, though if they’re indoors they’ll need some grow lights. Blanc describes it for Ping:

The Vertical Garden is composed of three parts: a metal frame, a PVC layer and felt. The metal frame is hung on a wall or can be self-standing. It provides an air layer acting as a very efficient thermic and phonic isolation system. A 1cm thick PVC sheet is then riveted on the metal frame. This layer brings rigidity to the whole structure and makes it waterproof. After that comes a felt layer made of polyamide that is stapled on the PVC. This felt is corrosion-resistant and its high capillarity allows a homogeneous water distribution. The roots are now growing on this felt.

Watering is provided from the top with the tap water being supplemented with nutrients. The process of watering and fertilisation is automated. The whole weight of the ‘Vertical Garden’, including plants and metal frame, is lower than 30 kg per square meter. Thus the Vertical Garden can be implemented on any wall without any size or limitation of height.

I’m thinking that I could maybe use such walls as an alternative to new siding, at least on the front of the cabin where it’s seen on approach. It would certainly keep the south wall much cooler in the summer, and Blanc claims his walls are great insulation against the cold as well. If I were really clever I could also cover the deck rails and foundation and make the cabin practically invisible to the unaided eye!

But alas, I know what would happen. Skinks and copperheads would take over, the whole place would be one giant garden spider web in no time at all, and those house-eating carpenter bees and hornets would immediately move right back in. I just live too far out in the woods for a real vine-covered cottage.

But there’s good news! Blanc’s walls work indoors as well. Check out this photo of “organic wallpaper.” A wall like this is way beyond Feng Shui at bringing nature into a living space without bothering with all those philodendrons and spider plants and ferns I always forget to water.

I’m definitely going to get my sister the plant physiologist interested in one of these walls for the inside of her new log home in Lake Lure. It’s definitely her style, and she’s got just the windows for it!

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Filed under Green Living, Nature, Log Homes, Gardens, Art |