Watering plants is a crucial aspect of plant maintenance, and most homeowners use hand watering systems for their walls. Self-watering systems are also available, but they are more complex and require regular monitoring, pruning, and regular replacements. Living walls, or vertical gardens, are a great way to add visual interest to your home and blend interiors with verdant gardens and outdoor rooms. They can transform bare walls into lush, green features, and the wall you choose depends on the plants you love most.
Manual watering techniques involve using a watering can or hose with a spray attachment to water your living wall, starting at the top and allowing the water to trickle down. Pay attention to soil moisture levels to avoid underwatering and overwatering. Automatic irrigation with drain-connected overflow is a common option for larger walls, as water should gently flow from each hole into the pockets, causing them to become wet at their back and bottom folds.
A living wall can be easily irrigated by an automatic drip irrigation system, minimizing water run-off at the bottom of the green wall. For dry area interior walls, set a timer to water 2 times a day for 30 minutes or more, and adjust as needed.
In summary, watering plants is essential for maintaining their health and vibrant appearance. By following these steps, you can create a beautiful living wall that not only adds visual interest to your home but also enhances the overall aesthetic appeal of your space.
📹 Easy DIY Self-Watering Micro Living Plant Wall
I’ve made living walls a few times on the channel, but they’re usually kind of involved to make. For this project, my goal was to …
📹 DIY Sub-irrigated Green Wall — Plant One On Me — Ep 028
__ Homestead Brooklyn’s Plant One On Me is an informal question-and-answer series on all your green home and gardening tips …
This project reminds me of a quote by Leonardo Da Vinci: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” You were able to capture a breath of nature in a very small space, made the process easy and cost-effective for beginners to recreate, and exude an air of Japanese artistic elegance in both the production and the build. I guess what I’m trying to say is. . . fantastic job! ✌
Sweet, I followed the instructions. I used nylon and polyester blend since those won’t rot. I may have overcrowded but I’ll let it become survival of the fittest and let the plants decide who stays and who goes. Hopefully this thing will hold up. I didn’t use the same container, I’m going to have to make some feet for it to hold up nicer. I might add the Vinyl wood wrap around the container. I’m going to do something else similar but with succulents
Thank you so much for all the work you put into your articles! We live on a sailboat and can’t realistically recreate many of your designs in our home, but we watch them all nonetheless. This, however, is one we could do, and I love it!! My partner built a teak framework and 3D printed a water reservoir. So far I’ve filled in the foam slats with cuttings I’ve taken from other plants, and they seem to be thriving. Now that I know how well it works, I’ll invest in some more plants to fill it out. Peace to you and all your animal friends 💖✌🏻
Very strange question/request. Would you ever consider doing a living terrarium/wall type set up that contains plants that are safe and possibly even edible by cats? I know you primarily do setups for reptiles and general projects but I would LOVE to create something that enriches my environment and my non-scaled friends lives. Just a thought. Thank you and great article as always!!!
Hey, looks great. I have a question about the lighting. Is a normal LED light really enough? I always wanted more plants in my apartment, but it is really dark. I assumed that plants needed special grow-lights to survive? Is a normal LED really enough? And how many hours has the light turned on each day? (I assume it’s different for every plant, but maybe there is a rule of thumb)
Ok, ok your a bastard lol,, I’ve been perusal your articles since COVID hit,, I’ve resisted getting back into aquariums, ( I had twenty going at one time,). It started with a simple little terrarium in a glass bowl,, you made it so simple to do,,,,, grrrrrr Well as you can guess following your guidelines it freaking thrived, and was spectacular!!! Great success, (×€¢£#@$#!!!) Well now I have six terrariums in various sizes, with a few custom builds for friends and family,,, yeah I’m busy now. My semi retired life has been taken over by terrarium builds hahaha, you bugger 😂😂. And now I just took a 45 gallon bowfront tank which s going to be built as a Pacific volcano Island with the water coming out the top of the crater draining down over the slope into a 20 gallon aquarium below, with cave structures Proud member of SerpaSquad 👍👍👍
I was so excited to try out a project that looks great and looks so easy that even I could do it. I searched every Target in my local city and found ONE lid. That’s fine — this lets me build two of these! I scored the lid. I scored it and scored it. So much scoring. “A few times”, Serpa said in the article. I did it probably 3 dozen or more times. Then I go to snap it off … and the lid cracks from end to end. It’s now unusable. I’m so disheartened. This was literally the easiest project that I’ve seen. I was so excited to try it and I can’t even score and snap off plastic properly. Ugh. I hate how easy youtubers can make their content look versus the actual difficulty. It’s almost as if Serpa is a professional and I’m not.
Father Serpa, I have moved into a smaller apartment recently. It’s me my wife and my cat. Unfortunately we couldn’t decorate it as well as I want. I had an idea. Our cat drinks water from an automatic waterfall fountain. Could you create a small waterfall cat garden inside a 60qt shoe storage plastic tote
Hi Summer! Cool episode, I love the use of regular gutters. Beautiful results. The wick cloth answers the over/under watering issue, smart. Have you tried a toilet’s fill valve for on/off of water? A rebuild kit has a “float” valve. It keeps water on until level rises to a set point. Float reliably turns off water (hopefully). Running the “Fill” line to top gutter and float valve in bottom gutter could work.
We are taking our house to studs. I have figured out a green home and wanted a green wall as humidifier to balance with a de-humidifier. It is more now. Your DIY is great. I am thinking of making it into a waterfall, which will keep water moving to discourage unwanted critters. I an guessing 2x12s would be enough support for the gutters and a faucet for watering. Are there other suggestions you’d have for a dedicated newbie? Thanks
Great article Summer! I have a dream of building something similar in my condo in Montreal, would be great if you could share more information. Mainly, I’d like to know what’s the optimal spacing between the gutters, and how exactly were they reinforced to be 100% waterproof, I see they are covered at the ends and on the front as well (maybe also at the bottom?). Thanks a lot 🙂
Wauw, it works so different then i thought. Smart made way that it works. It was not so good to see the led, maybe because it was on that it was hard to see.. the last seconds it is to be seen. Is the led enough?? Thanks for showing, amazingly made. because you said you did more inprovements in your apparment like in your kitchen… looking so much forward to it… greetings and thanks again. Oh and 3 bag with purple sweet potatos is planted today on my balcony because yesterday the 3 bag came in and bought soil for it today. I my self am stepping over to crystal gel balls as soil because of the little flys and another bug that is on some plants laefs. Trying to fine lacewings somewhere because the suppliers on amazone do not deliver in the Netherlands. Really thanks for you update… Bye
Thank you for the walk through. I’m in the planning stages of converting a corner in our livingroom into a green corner and this article was very helpful. Keep up the great work! P.S. I’d love to see more about how some of these places you tour are constructed. Similar to this article, how the plants are mounted, watered, maintained etc.
My mom lives a long drive away, so we urged her to move closer to us since her area has no internet for me (I work online) to go to her for very long to help her as she ages (she is 78). Well, we convinced her. She is in the process of buying the land next to us (a small 1/2 acre lot) and to my horror she plans to cement the whole thing because she says it is hard for her to walk on grass. None of my really sound reasons to leave any grass have been accepted, not even the danger to her dogs’ paw pads and the heat island effect. So, I am looking for a way to get green there but not create a walking issue. I have to admit to liking a green wall idea to also block some of the heat from our own property and hide the view of a cement lot from our own place. She may love the idea, but we realize how ugly it is going to look. sigh. Your explanation here makes it feel doable even though for us it will be an outdoor adventure with the added challenges of wind, southern U.S. heat, winter frost/freeze, insects, and sheer size/scale. We will have to adapt it quite a bit, but this gives us answers to questions we have been wondering about such as an irrigation system for the summer drought months we tend to have.
My boss was SO excited after perusal the article – he had the guys build a greenwall in our office. He planted seeds, got some cuttings and it has been about 3 weeks since getting started. Now standing water in the bottom smells sulfurous. Have you encountered anything like this and, if you did? what was your remedy?
That’s genius. I’ve always wondered how those things work. I love it that it makes it possible to watch out for which plants don’t want to live in that particular environment and then, hopefully, try them somewhere else (like in a pot… on a window sill… or somewhere). You can just keep trying different plants and then, eventually, voila – every plant is happy and thriving. I wonder if it’s possible to do this on a much more slimline, on the z axis, system. I’d like the wall next to my bath/shower to be a green wall – only it’s a tiny bathroom and the bath is wholly filling one end of it. Obviously I can’t have anything that sticks out too much, else I wouldn’t be able to use the bath/shower. Can plant roots survive being in large flat(ish) containers? Traditionally they’re in round or square pots.
I saw that you have some airplants in the background, could you maybe do an overview of tillandsia/airplant care?? I recently picked up a tillandsia xerographica, one of the biggest airplants, and I am really struggling to find any solid information on it. I know the basics, such as giving it a bath weekly, and indirect bright light, but what type of water does it prefer? And how do I allow mine to unfurl more?
I love it!!! I do wonder though, when plants grow they obviously grow more roots and they’ll eventually need more space than a 5 inch gutter could provide– at least that’s my assumption. Do you just move them out of the wall when they need more space? Or have you found that they do fine in the wall?
Hello, im in the mountains of NEPA and in the winter i would still like to grow veggies. Have you tried edibles on this wall, Letuce and cucmbers? Do you think aquaponics would work if veggies are involved or would running water cause a problem? Ive been itching to try a garden wall or a window hanging.
I grow indoors as well in NYC and I was babysitting my friend’s peace lily and i did not notice until the end of the week that it was infested with root aphids. I have over 50 plants that were either gifts or I grew to remember someone who passed away in my family so tossing them is a no. can you give me any ideas on how to safely irradicate the pest. Ive already lost my key lime and kaffir tree, as well as 3 pepper plants, am desperate please help.
I’d love some help identifying 3 of the plants in this article if anyone can help me? 1: The lime green, large leafed plant with plum coloured stems, in the top left at 3:30 (I assume it’s a philodendron? My plant knowledge is basic at best!) 2: The plant touching summers right shoulder at 4:20 3: The large leafed plant above the maidenhair fern at 5:20 Thanks in advance for any help!
Few things to consider.. 1. Using tap water is not ideal for plants. Use water cleaned by reverse osmosis. 2. How this is set up, it’s not recycling it’s own water, so it increases operational cost. 3. Plant nutrients are coming from the soil BC of point 2, you can’t use hydroponic nutrients. They would flush out. It creates room for bad microbes, mold, and fungus to grow. I like your wall, but am having a tough time understanding why this setup was chosen over a self contained hydroponic system.