“We must cultivate our garden”.

(Cándido, Voltaire)

1. A little history: Babylonia garden 2. What is a vertical garden?3. Types of vertical gardens.4. Use of vertical gardens5. Who is Patrick Blanc?6. What kind of plants can you cultivate in a

vertical garden?7. How much water does a vertical garden waste?8. How much does it cost to maintain a vertical

garden?9. Can you save energy with this kind of garden?10. Vertical garden in Spain: Caixaforum garden

(Madrid)11. How can you build a vertical garden?

In the old days, in Babylonia city already existed specials gardens they are well-known like suspension gardens situated in the most important building in the old Babylonia’s civilization.

The legend tells us that the gardens were built for the king to the queen. It was a love present to remember the flora of the place when she was born.

The suspensions gardens was built in a terraced land in the top there was a water tank which can water the gardens.

Actually this gardens are known like vertical gardens.

Is a green wall that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and, in some cases, in soil or an inorganic growing medium.

There are two main categories of green walls:

▼ Green facades: are made up of climbing plants either growing directly on a wall or, more recently, specially designed supporting structures. The plant shoot system grows up the side of the building while being rooted in the ground.

▼ Living wall : are often made of stainless steel containers, geotextiles, irrigation systems, a growing medium and vegetation.

▼ The plants reduce overall temperatures of the building.

▼ A vertical garden may also be a means for water reuse.

▼ The plants may purify slightly polluted water by absorbing the dissolved nutrients. Bacteria mineralize the organic components to make them available to the plants.

▼ The living wall could also function for urban agriculture, urban gardening, or for its beauty as art. It is sometimes built indoors to help alleviate sick building syndrome.

Patrick Blanc is a botanist, specializes in plants from tropical forests. Yet the vertical garden was invented by Professor Stanley Hart White at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1938.

Stanley

H.W.

The teacher White invented the first known Vertical Garden, as a design on modern garden. Although Blanc did not invent the vertical garden, he is responsible for modernizing and popularizing the garden type.

Patrick B.

There is a great variety of plants that can be use to build a vertical garden and the election is made attending to the condition of the environment that just exists (temperature, humidity and light).

Normally, we use small plants with are resist to external use or internal use.In general this gardens use plants with cans grow up with a little soil or another kind of sediments like fern bromeliads, orchid and the succulents

The water that a vertical garden needs depends on kind of plants, environment and type of irrigation.

Depends on kind of fertilizers, irrigation, the prunes and the replanting.

You save air conditioning, ventilation in summer and a total reduction of 8% in buildings energy.

This living wall isolates the building from the external noise and drastic temperature changes.It´s an efficient environmental agent that serves to fight against pollution and protects the wall against bad weather.

The vertical garden consists of three main elements: A metal structure. A plastic sheet. A layer of polyamide felt.

It has 460 square metres. It consists of 15,000 plants of 250 different species.Many of them are native such as Lonicera nitida, Yucca filamentosa,Cistus purpureus, Cedrus deodara, Pilosella aurantiaca, Dianthus deltoides, Arenaria montana, Cornus sanguinea, Lonicera pileata and Sedum alpestre.Others are foreign but well adapted to the climate of Madrid as the commonly known Hortensia or Winter Cabbage plant (Bergenia cordifolia) from Siberia and Mongolia.

Lonicera nitida

Yucca filamentosa

Cistus purpureus

Diantus deltoides

Sedum alpestre

Cornus sanguinea