Recently in Melbourne for the International Design Festival and to celebrate his latest installation at Melbourne Central, French botanist and artist Patrick Blanc continues to wow people around the world with his vertical gardens.
Unlike many Australian green walls, Blanc’s gardens are not made with engineered panels. Instead Blanc uses plants that will grow on felt sheets. “I only use plants that grow in the wild on rock faces,” he has said.
His new book, The Vertical Garden, is, according to publisher John Wiley and Sons, “a luscious, oversized, full-colour book featuring Blanc’s installations in Madrid, Paris, Bangkok, New York, Melbourne, Sydney and many more.”
It is available from bookstores for AU$77.95.
Last month, The Age reported that Blanc works as both a scientist and an artist. He is:
employed by France’s National Centre for Scientific Research to conduct field research and write up his findings. The lines between his professional interests are so blurry as to be non-existent, he insists, but it’s the vertical garden sideline that has made his name and inspired a legion of imitators.
“This is not a bad thing because I cannot cover all the walls of the world by myself,” he says of this sincerest form of flattery. “I’m especially ‘appy because all of the ones I see until now are not very good.”
Below is a building facade designed by Blanc in Madrid, Spain. Photo: Adaptiveruse.
To listen to an ABC radio interview with Blanc about choosing the plants for his walls, click here and scroll down, or listen (3′36″) here. 
Below: press arrow to view a video documentary of some of Patrick Blanc’s spectacular Parisian walls:
Posted by vision4ourcities on August 22, 2008 at 4:20 am
If you wish to see what happened in Melbourne for the installation of Patrick’s Vertical Garden, please visit this link:
http://gallery.me.com/a.giglio#100013&bgcolor=black&view=mosaic&sel=0
I was one of the 7 people in Patrick Blanc’s Team that planted the Vertical Garden at Melbourne Central last month, July 2008.
Cheers,
Antonino Giglio – The City Gardener – Vision 4 Our Cities
http://vision4ourcities.wordpress.com/
Posted by Nina James on August 24, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Patrick’s and his verticle walls are spectacular- but we need to come up with a better way to reuse the water- his system uses a lot of water, and in Australia, this won’t do!
Posted by vision4ourcities on August 25, 2008 at 11:28 am
Nina we have plenty of water in Australia, it is just badly administered!
Think at the water we waste everyday in the loo, in the shower, in the sink, in the washing machine and on and on and on…
There is plenty of water mate! We just need to become wiser users.
For example is crazy to irrigate cotton crops as cotton is very water unsustainable. The same applies to irrigating hectars and hectars of stone fruit with our precious water and then export them. That is mad!
Like is mad to flush the loo with drinking water and is mad that industries uses drinking water too when they should be using only recicled one.
So Patrick Blanc’s vertical garden are sustainable if the water is re-used and it is.
Posted by Cindy on September 3, 2008 at 4:25 am
These living walls are so beautiful! How can I learn how to do it?
Posted by Mann Chester on September 3, 2008 at 4:31 pm
That wall or vertical garden is one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen. It looks photoshopped and fake but I really hope it isn’t. Spain knows what they’re doing.
Posted by Green Bob on September 14, 2008 at 8:20 pm
What a great idea. I would like to get this in Austin if I can find an interested business to do it.
Background… I was frustrated at not being able to find green businesses. My online searches brought up out of date, irrelevant or business on the other side of the country. So, at least for Austin Texas my friends and I put up http://www.FindGreen411.com – Find it Green, Find it Local, Find it Fast.
Posted by istgah on October 4, 2008 at 9:08 am
very nice and interesting
tankx !
Posted by Nanette Beall on October 12, 2008 at 12:05 am
Has anyone tried an outdoor vertical garden in a hardiness zone 5 or 6? If so, what are the additional considerations? Can one water only on warm days? Are there certain plants that do better than others? thanks!
Posted by amir on October 21, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Hi,I am a landscape architect and I need to know ,how can I do these walls?anybody knows the details?
Posted by maureen hanvey on August 16, 2009 at 6:01 pm
we are growers of vertical walls. we can tell you how to do and use grey water to irrigate it.
we have all the detials/. woud love to hear from anyone interested in vetical walls or living walls.
here in rainy ireland/
Posted by Frida on September 16, 2009 at 4:54 pm
I built a double railing on the end of my deck to fill with plants. I will use landscape fabric and fill it with soiless mix. Can you recomend a mix?
Posted by Johnny Coates on October 27, 2008 at 12:21 am
wOw!! really breathe taking stuff you got here!
Posted by john on December 17, 2008 at 9:22 pm
I have a few of the alternative soil based vertical garden units installed on my home testing plants in a shady 5-6 zone (this is the 1st winter over). I’m watering them on the warmer days to keep the soil and roots moist. I have some evergreen perennials and sedums and infilled with some annuals, testing for shade tolerance with reflected light. I’m planning the next test installation using the felt base installing this spring. Will be adding some smaller evergreen shrubs starts and additional evergreen perennials in this installation to test for winter hardiness.
Posted by Darcy on August 9, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Can you report on how the plants did during last winter? Which plants made it and which didn’t? And where are you located?
Posted by Loukas Kalogirou on March 3, 2009 at 8:27 am
I’m a Landscape Architect myself…I think Patrick is a genius. We can solve the air pollution problem in big sities, like Athens and Thesaloniiki in Greece (I’m Greek) and of course in every big city around the world (London, Paris, NY, …..). Not to mention the huge advantages in the aisthetical section. The water can be gathered from rain upon thw roofs and stored in water tanks for this use. I wish I could work with Patrick so I could learn for of his methods….
An admirer from Greece
Loukas Kalogirou