Will the gardens of the future be upright?

21:11:20 19th November 2009

With pressure increasing on urban space, upright gardens on the side of buildings could take over from traditional green spaces, the Daily Telegraph reports.

Garden designer Patrick Blanc has given a new meaning to the phrase ´wall garden´, with green-fingered creations which climb as high as 80 feet.

Blanc, who has studied the botanic environments of rainforests, is interested in plants which grow without soil, and he has patented his own technique for mounting plants to vertical walls using layers of felt.

Examples of his gardens already exist at the Athenaeum Hotel in London and the CaixaForum gallery in Madrid, the latter of which covers a total of 550 sqare yards.

Although vertical garden features such as timber arbours have been popular for decades, it seems unlikely that Blanc´s upright gardens will become a common sight anytime soon.

Also, with nowhere to site a garden shed, maintaining one of the gardens could prove challenging.

Among his other awards, Blanc won the prestigious silver medal of the Architecture Academy in 2005.