I've loved living walls ever since I first discovered them, probably 6 years ago. Scotscape has always been the company I link with them as suppliers and installers, so I jumped at the chance to attend their workshop to learn more about living walls.
The workshop was held at Scotscape's headquarters in Surbiton, Surrey on the 25th August. The day began with an hour long presentation covering everything, including the benefits to the environment, biodiversity, health and wellbeing.
I've always admired the obvious aesthetic benefits of living walls but never realised the huge benefits to the environment! Living walls are one of the best ways to reduce air pollution in our cities, reducing it by up to 20%! I came out of the presentation feeling quite passionate about our quest and responsibility as landscape designers to ensure we include living walls in schemes as much as possible for the sake of our futures!!
After the presentation we took a tour of the various living walls on display showing how versatile the product is; being able to cover curved walls, portakabins and pillars. They are even trialing the possibility of growing trees in the system!
We discussed some of the endless planting options for the system. Scotscape can offer guidance on the species used depending on what effect you want to achieve and maintenance levels.
They have recently trialed sedums which have worked really well and haven't required irrigation.
We were also given a demo' on how the system is constructed, showing just how simple yet effective it is. It's so neat and even has easy access to the irrigation system in case there are any issues to repair in the future.
Followed by a demo' showing the irrigation options, for large commercial schemes down to small domestic projects.
The workshop was really thorough and I highly recommend it to get a better understanding of living walls. I now feel confident to specify them in future schemes and know I will have the full support from the Scotscape team to achieve the perfect solution.
The next workshop details can be found on the following link; Scotscape workshop