Les murs végétaux, Patrick Blanc

Close to the garden festival at Chaumont-sur-Loire, but a permanent part of the gardens, located in the 'experimental garden'. Three walls of varying height and plant material by Patrick Blanc (the same designer for the green façade at Musée du Quai Branly).


Why install plants on a vertical surface?
Surely, the appearance of vegetated walls for the festival in 1994 left more than one visiter perplexed. Nearly 10 years later, they still exist after having been transferred to the experimental garden. Since then, many others have been constructed for individuals or in public spaces. The challenge was to find a way to place the plants in permanent contact with water. The method adopted was simple: A metal frame is covered with an expanded pane of PVC and a rot-proof cloth for irrigation. A closed irrigation circuit programmed by a clock assures, for the top, a permanent dampening of the planted surfaces. The water transports the necessary minerals and trace elements to the developing plants before reaching the foot of the wall where it is re-pumped. Installed in small pockets of the same type of cloth, the plants colonise the walls freely, while developping their roots between the synthetic cloth and the pane of PVC.