Why it’s all about the living wall

We cannot rely on the weather so why not bring the outside in with a living wall?

The trend is reaching new heights. London’s Atheneaum Hotel has long championed the striking feature but it is rapidly spreading its roots. A recent trip to Eindhoven in the Netherlands showed the concept off in all its glory at the hip Wynwood restaurant. Urban Coterie, a sky-high members club in Shoreditch, has fashioned a wall from succulents, various mosses and ferns. The Anthropologie stores regularly incorporate the style while the Yves Rocher store in Paris installed one as part of a fresh and vibrant design scheme.

“A vertical indoor living wall takes the traditional idea of plants in a conservatory and interprets this in a very new way,” says Thomas Sanderson Design Consultant Patrice Chandler and celebrity stylist Linda Barker. “While this look has been used recently in retail and commercial it’s very new into domestic spaces but most definitely a feature that we expect to see lots more of in UK homes.”

They are surprisingly easy to create. Burgon & Ball Vertical planters are a good starting point. Each planter has three pockets which can accommodate six plants. With prices at £9.95 for a two pack they are affordable and easy to assemble. It is just a matter of screwing them into a wall (burgonandball.com).

Alternatively, splash out on an irrigation system. Tiga Europe has products which are particularly suitable for cities as they allow good use of vertical surface areas. Going down this route will cost a pricier £175 per square metre but once installed it should not involve as much upkeep. Watermatic has a similar offering. The company claims the benefits of installing a living wall include thermal insulation, improved air quality, biodiversity and sound absorption (watermaticltd.co.uk).

The features can also work well for small outdoor spaces. Designed and developed in house by Treebox, the Easiwall-Pro system is ideal for courtyards or balconies which need sprucing up. Made from 80 per cent recycled materials and 100 per cent recyclable, they are designed with vertical planting troughs attached to a solid back panel. Rigid and waterproof, they are suitable for use as cladding on buildings in place of other façades (treebox.co.uk).

Armando Raish of Treebox says: “Living walls are an increasingly necessary element in modern design. As well as offering a beautiful aesthetic feature, pleasing on the eye much like a tasteful piece of art, vertical planting is an excellent use of space and can substantially increase the planting area of a small garden or roof terrace.”

The recent Design and Architecture Fair at Somerset House saw Treebox team up with design studio Echlin and luxury carpet maker Deidre Dyson to create The LIVING Room. The concept demonstrated how we can further blend and blur the lines between inside space and outside space in our future homes. “Nature and the great outdoors are a primary inspiration for my work. For the exhibition we selected designs that bring the green world indoors. Two of the carpets Torn Between and Forest are in beautifully graded silk. My designs can be hung on the wall or laid on the floor to bring the natural environment inside.”

According to recent studies, there is increased evidence that ‘real life’ and greenery in our homes can make us less stressed so find the right space and soak up the benefits.