How To Build A Green Wall

I decided last year that I needed to green up our balcony. Space is a premium, so the only place left to plant is on the walls. My plan was to build a Green Wall on our south facing wall.

Photo from Eco-friendly Promos

I had the idea when I saw all the water that was being generated by our air-conditioner just going to waste. I was using some of it to water our plants around our apartment and on our balcony, but I thought there must be another way I could use it. A green wall seemed like the ideal way of planting in a confined space, and using the waste water from our air-conditioner.

After quite a bit of research, I found the simplest method was pioneered by a French botanist by the name of Patrick Blanc.  He calls it Le Mur Vegetal, and its really quite a simple solution. He has built several Vertical Gardens throughout the world, and a few people have adapted his method to create their own. Before I began, I sat down and planned in detail on Sketchup how to build it. If you're interested in building your own one, this is a short video I made to show the steps involved in making your own green wall.

Indigenous Beauties : Kleinia fulgens

If you're looking for a small plant that makes a big difference, then the coral senecio is it. Its a hardy plant, ideal for a rockery, amongst grasses or planted alongside aloes. Its a plant to rival David Blaine - the endurance artist and illusionist. Its incredibly tough - plants can be left out of the ground for weeks, and when replanted, carry on as if nothing ever happened.

Kleinia fulgens peaking out of Aloe vanbalenii's legs

Added to its supernatural abilities the fact that it is a perfect combination of silvery-blue foliage and bright red thistle-like flowers, you know it will stand out in any garden or container.

Kleinia Fulgens in flower

The resilient succulent grows to about 500-600mm, and loves a hot dry spot in the garden. It flowers best when its been well fed and watered in summer and then left dormant in winter. The lipstick-red flowers look amazing flowering alongside Aloes in winter.

The name Kleinia comes from the German zoologist - Dr Klein, who first documented the plant, but klein also happens to be the Afrikaans word for small. Fulgens is the latin word for glittering. 'Little Glittering' is a perfect summary of this amazing plant.

If It Aint Broke, Don't Landscape It...

Lately I have been aware of how landscaping a home garden entails a very careful balancing act between imposing your own ideas, and doing what the client wants. All the while making sure that the garden suits the environment.

Alstroemeria in the Baynesfield Gardens

I have been working on a garden for a very sweet elderly lady, and it has truly been a pleasure adding a fresh touch to her garden. The garden itself is well established, albeit in a style that is a little outdated (I hesitate to use that word because I believe if a garden is well designed it should never really become outdated) and also relatively thirsty.

Normally in a situation like this, I would try to steer the client towards making some quite significant changes. But in this case, having weighed up the clients tastes and preferences, I didn't believe that much change was required at all.

She already loves her garden.  Thats exactly what I strive to achieve when I create a garden. So, why fix what isn't broken?

Behind The Scenes - Coastal Dune Garden - Follow Up

I mentioned in a previous post on a Coastal Dune Garden we completed, that I would follow it up with some photos, so here they are:

This is where we started - no level area. Trees screened the house in front, but also blocked the view.

Berms now hide the house below, and give additional height for the plants to grow on. The area, now level, provides ample room and gives a feeling of space and openness.

Aloe vanbalenii, is one of my favourite aloes. The amazing changes in colour of its leaf from apple green to burnt red is only just surpassed by its spectacular flowers. When they're grouped together they look their best. I used mainly succulents on the front of the 'dunes' because of their neat look, and easy maintenance. They handle the wind and poor soil normally associated with beachfront properties.

Behind the dunes, I planted swathes of grass, to create a soft backdrop to the 'harder' looking succulents. I also wanted the grass to create movement, almost like water washing against the beach.

I interspersed the grass with Eucomus, Gladiolus, and Watsonia which will create little spots of colour in amongst the predominantly Melinis nerviglumis grass. Watsonia is quite rare, and on the endangered list, so I try and use it wherever I can, and as close to its natural habitat as possible.

Behind the grass, I planted Plumbago, and a pocket of Leonotus leonurus, which the vervet monkeys are apparently loving. Sunbirds are also a common visitor to the spires of nectar-filled orange flowers, which remind me of little miniature fireworks.

Round-leafed Kalanchoe thyrsiflora is nestled in between the large rocks that we placed close to the top of the dunes. We really sweated while trying to manouvre these massive stones down to the lower garden without damaging them, ourselves or anything else.

Although rocks are seldom found on actual dunes, they do create an immediate sense of permanence to the garden, that the plants will eventually grow into.

The Best Way To Landscape Your Website

You may have noticed that I haven't been posting a whole bunch lately? That old idiom has been coming to mind quite a bit recently "Make hay while the sun shines". Its a great piece of advice, especially for us procrastinators, who might rather be blogging than tackling any tough tasks.

Another task that I have been tackling in the last few weeks, has been the pruning and replanting of my landscape website. Its been a project that I have been working on bit by bit for the last year or so, but I felt that it was time to make a concerted effort to finish it.

As I've gotten it closer to where I want it, I've realised how similar creating a website is to landscaping a garden:

1. Its essential to have a plan of what you want the finished garden/website to look like.
2. Before you start figure out who will be experiencing the website/landscape.
3. Use the best tools you can afford.
4. Its important to have a theme that brings everything together. In a garden, you could have more than one theme depending on the size of the garden, but if you do, it could leave the visitor confused.
5. Figure out the structure first, and build onto and around that.
6. Simpler is often better.
7. Don't make the landscape/site too busy or distracting, it leaves you feeling unsettled and less likely to enjoy the experience.
8. Repetition of certain elements throughout the site/garden is important to give the eye some familiarity
9. When its looking messy, and you're feeling a little overwhelmed, don't give up. Its usually just on the other side that you'll start to see the end in sight.
10. Look at your use of colours carefully - complimentary colours are really restful and harmonious, contrasting colours are bold and exciting.
11. Make sure you do as much research as possible before you start, and if you're unsure of any code/application/plant, do some more research.
12. Experimenting is how you learn. Place the plant/code in your website, and see how it looks. If it doesn't look right, be ruthless and pull it out - it'll get harder to do when you build other plants/code around it. If you feel bad about pulling it out, you can always give it to a friend - a gift of 'html code' is always welcome. (ok, maybe I'm pushing the similarities too far there.)
13. Ask experts for advice (if you can afford it - hire a professional to do it for you), and get feedback from friends, but trust your instincts too.
14. Have fun doing it, but don't let it consume you - everybody needs a hobby, no-one needs an obsession.

I'm currently at number 13. I would love some feedback about the website. Feel free to be as critical/honest as you want. Personally, I think its the best landscape website I've ever seen - but hey, I might be biased ;-)

The Importance of Beauty - A View on the 2010 World Cup

Its been hard to ignore the fact that there's a World Cup happening in our backyard at the moment. Its been something we've been building (literally and emotionally) towards for the last several years, with equal doses of pessimism and excitement. I'm looking forward to seeing the long-term benefits to our economy and nation, as the rest of the world has a chance to see what a truly amazing place South Africa is. The truth is, once you've lived here, its hard to be happy anywhere else.

Flag Wrapped Tree outside the Africa Art Centre on Florida Road

Huge amounts of money have been spent on things like building brand new stadiums, fixing infrastructure that wasn't too bad before, and tidying beaches, parks and other public places. None of which would and should probably be a high priority in a country, where there is such an extreme between rich and poor. Where the AIDS epidemic has effected almost everyone to some degree, and where many essentials are spoken of as priorities, but are in actuality, neglected.

But honestly, I'm not sure that I'm unhappy that money has been spent on these "superficial" things. You can't deny the effect that this World Cup has had on uniting a nation obsessed with pointing at our differences, rather than celebrating what makes us unique.

Natal Mahogany wrapped with South African Flag for the World Cup

The money that has been spent on revamping our Durban beachfront, or creating parks where there were empty lots before, or planting trees to beautify the neighbourhoods, would never have been spent on these 'less important' things. Sadly, creating beauty is seen as unimportant in our needy world.

But beauty is what inspires us, its what takes our minds off of the mundane. Beauty affects our emotions, and perceptions. It changes the way we feel about ourselves. I'm not advocating choosing something pretty over buying food to eat. But if we're not looking, we might miss the fact that the beautiful doesn't always have to be sacrificed to the practical.

Wrapped Trees lining the streets of Durban for 2010

Very often, beauty doesn't have to even be costly. Sometimes, it just needs a different perspective, new eyes, or the desire to appreciate.

Thinning Plants or Thieving Plants?

A common mal-practice amongst landscapers here in South Africa, and particularly the larger companies that provide landscaping or maintenance services on a large scale, is the theft of plants.

Aloes in flower, planted with Strelitzia back-drop

Its an accepted fact that when a bed becomes overcrowded, it becomes necessary to thin those plants out, and then replant them elsewhere. Often, they are just replanted elsewhere in the garden, and sometimes they are even sold on to other clients. Both of which I believe are acceptable solutions.

The lines become blurred, however, when there is no real need for thinning. The landscaping company is just looking for free plants that they can then sell on to another client.

I saw a particularly bad case of this recently, in the turning circle of an office park in La Lucia. The bed was planted with a swathe of Strelitzia reginae (Bird of Paradise Flower), which had begun to mature over the last couple of years, and was creating a perfect backdrop to the Aloes planted in front. When I drove past the other day, all the Strelitzia had been removed and replaced with Anthericum - a favourite amongst generic landscapers because they are fast growing, and cheap. The value of the Strelitzia when sold on, would have been in the tens of thousands.

Normally, I would be happy that wild grasses are being used in the landscape - they are a great source of food for birds, and are very under-appreciated. But in this case - I'm fairly certain that the client had no idea what had just happened. The grass will never create the same effect that the Strelitzia had - and I believe the garden is aesthetically poorer for it. Not to mention the fact that I have spotted a troop of mongooses using the Strelitzia as a place to hide.

The sad thing is, the client may never even notice the difference, and probably for this very reason, crimes like this continue to be committed by unscrupulous "landscapers". The unfortunate result of this type of action is that it calls into question everything done by the landscaper, and erodes the trust required to design and maintain a garden.