Apartment living is here to stay and as many choose the lower maintenance option this lifestyle brings, interesting challenges are being met with innovative and sustainable outcomes for the ‘garden in the sky’.
So you’ve decided to leave the expense of a high maintenance family home for apartment living. Ok, well while there are going to be some adjustments to be made now you’re ‘living in the sky’, you’ve probably noticed a big change from a garden growing on terra-firma as a ground dweller. While its lovely not having to worry about gutters and rising damp, unrelieved hard surface surrounding your every moment might be a little jarring to get get used to ….
What to do to trade off some of that unyielding hard surface for lush green cover .. to bring back balance in a living surround.. ?
Combination Greenwalls with Eco Pillow runs are the new frontier in transformation of the built environment. Super water efficient with their own irrigation system and drip trays, 2m x 1m panels cover majority vertical spaces in ‘portrait’ orientation and are extended across horizontal expanses using 800 x 400mm Eco Pillows end to end in ‘landscape’ orientation.
Once reliable water is connected, the impact of high exposure aspects from the 4th floor and much higher, can be made sustainable with a fertiliser injector for easy nutrition to a vast band width of plant selection adaptable from epiphytic and lithophytic habitats. A myriad of various bromeliads from aechaea, neoregelia, vriesea, canistropsis, canistrum and even the Giant Landscape species alcantarea. These can form a majority planting space at uppermost reaches for the most sun tolerance, with native hoya australis on grow supports to extend cover to higher horizontal hard surface. Progressively self shaded, the lower reaches are best for a mix of foliage contrasts as understory in peperomia, plectranthus, begonias, streptocarpus, epiphyllum and ferns to take up lower position micro climates.
Growing media comprises a majority of inorganic component parts that won’t disintegrate, leaving plants in ‘root block’ depletion and susceptible to predation with nothing to grow in after the first year. Instead available pore space is kept above an acceptable minimum, so your Greenwall has a beautifully long life expectancy. Maintenance is built into your installation contract and can be arranged after the initial grow in period.
Why live in a hard surface environment closer to the polar bear exhibit at the zoo, when you could frame the view, back the bathroom or grow a wreath of rich contrasts just where you need it most !
Mark Paul – Greenwall Company 0418 631 351 & 9969 2682 inquiries@greenwall.com.au
.. and if your Greenwall requirements are just part of your scope of work to be Project Managed together, call Garden Designer Peter Nixon or call 0418 161513
