Living Wall

These first days of Spring have brought some simple and fun activities. We ate our first patio dinner on Saturday. Penelope and I roller skated at the skatepark, and we planted our first living wall! 

All pandemic long, I’ve been escaping into various shows about making homes – tiny homes and dream homes. Many of these homes feature living walls which are basically vertical structures of plants that are designed to cover an entire wall so that the wall looks like it is constructed of living plants.

Patrick gifted me a wall segment for Christmas, and we finally got around to planting it yesterday. 
This living wall segment is from Florafelt. The system comes with clear instructions to follow, but basically there is a felt square for each pocket, in which you wrap your plant – soil and all.

We chose plants that Florafelt recommended and that were also suited for low light. We have two ferns, a philodendron, and a ficus. 

The wrapping is sort of like swaddling a baby. Penelope wrapped each plant in their own felt square following the origami-like instructions.

Then, I put a rubber band around the entire plant packet to secure it, and I snuggled the plant package into the pocket.

Florafelt says that the roots of the plant will eventually grow into the felt. 

Once all of the plants were tucked into their new home, we watered the whole system thoroughly allowing the excess water to drain in the shower.

We are a little unclear about the best way to proceed with watering. It seems like we can water it thoroughly once a week or a little everyday. I’m guessing we’ll try the former and see how the plants do.

Then, we hung the wall segment with a metal dowel rod on the brick wall in our hallway. I’d been searching for the perfect art piece for this brick wall for a long time. Martha and David, the previous owners had a beautiful weaving that suited the space so well. I’m hoping the philodendron grows long, hanging into the stairwell. 

For now, I’m enjoying how this piece is injecting life to this space.