With the near ubiquitous press Green Wall and Green Roof construction is receiving in the garden and design magazines I subscribe to, I felt as though it was time to build one for myself. Expensive, proprietary wall and roof systems are nice because the engineering and the functionality have (hopefully) been worked out. The downside is that they are expensive and proprietary.
I like the idea of building something new with materials that are easy to find and that are relatively inexpensive. Gathering some left over wood polymer decking, 1/4" metal bed edging, weed fabric and netafim irrigation parts, I built a 3' x 3' "green wall module", mounted it to our shed and watched to see what would happen.
The good news is that the plants are thriving and it looks pretty cool. I didn't anticipate the amount of water drainage, however, and future green walls will have to be constructed with a mind to recirculate the water and pay closer to attention to water proofing the module.
NEXT: Green wall 2.0