How To Create An Indoor Living Wall: 6 Steps

Creating an indoor living wall is easier than you think! Just follow these 6 steps

By Esme Bourne

In my opinion, you can never have enough plants.

Whether you have outdoor greenery in planters with wheels, indoor plants in quirky ceramics, or a huge vegetable garden, you can always add lush foliage to your living space in creative – and beautiful -ways.

For example? Green walls are becoming a huge trend in interior design.

In case you haven’t heard of them before, they’re basically vertical gardens that are self-supported. The plants get their nutrition from within the vertical support system.

Also known as living walls, these are quite common now in urban outdoor landscapes, sure. But they are increasing being brought inside. That’s mainly thanks to the fact that they not only look lush and gorgeous, but they also bring loads of benefits, too!

The Benefits Of Green Walls In Your Home

One of the most obvious benefits of having an indoor living wall is that all those plants purify the air in your house. But green walls provide other health benefits, too.

For example? They’ve been proven to clear the mind, leading to better concentration and higher levels of productivity.

These living walls can even help reduce your home energy bills! Yep, that’s right: they cool off your home in summer and insulate it in winter. Through the process of evapotranspiration, living walls stabilise the humidity levels in your house too, meaning you can ditch the humidifier. That’s also good news, because more humidity in the air means better hair and skin for you. Yay!

Finally, many people report an increased sense of calm and wellbeing when surrounded by plants.

So, why not get started on your indoor green wall today?

How To Create An Indoor Living Wall In 6 Steps

They may look fancy, but making your own indoor living wall is easy thanks to the rise of living wall kits on the market. Here are some of the basic steps explaining how to create an indoor living wall.

How To Create An Indoor Living Wall: 6 Steps

1. Consider The Wall

You may already have an idea of where you want your living wall to be, but you really need to ensure the wall can take the weight of the plants, soil and water.

Got walls that can’t take a lot of weight from earth and H2O? No problem! Try growing air plants instead. Yep, those exist! They’re basically plants that grow in very little to no soil. For example, Tillandsias don’t need soil to grow and are happy to grow with air alone.

You also have to consider how much sunlight reaches that wall, and choose plants accordingly. Also remember that a living wall close to a large window might also be negatively impacted by cold during colder winter months.

2. Measure and Mark Your Space

Use a pencil and a tape measure to mark the dimensions on the wall you’ve selected, and check the size of the frames you want to buy. Work out how many frames you will need to fill the space you want for your indoor living wall.

Image: Livingwallart.com

3. Choose Your Frame

There are many companies that provide prefabricated wall-hanging frames in which you can plant your indoor living wall.

This one and this one provide plastic and wood frames that are quite small, but you can buy several and group them together for more volume.

Ditto for these easy-to-hang pockets. If your walls are all plaster and won’t support any weight at all, then this mobile ‘green wall’ is a great option, and can also be taken outdoors in the summer if you’d like it to enhance the beauty of your BBQ or patio area.

This frame is expandable, and works both indoors and outdoors. Don’t like any of these? You can also make your own living wall simply enough with wood, plastic sheeting, and a plant friendly fabric. Click here to get the DIYs on that.

4. Consider Light

The amount of light in your room will determine which plants you add to your indoor living wall.

For a succulent wall garden, for example, you’ll need a lot of sunlight for the plants to grow. The space you hang the garden should receive a minimum of six hours of direct sunlight for succulents. These plants will survive in areas that receive slightly less sunlight, but not as well as they would in direct sun.

Not got a lot of light? Try growing a green wall of orchids mixed in with spider plants and peace lilies. Gorgeous!

5. Water Your Garden

Plants in your indoor living wall should be watered when they approach dryness. That’s probably about every 7 days or so. In order to determine whether or not your plants need to be watered, just use your finger to feel the soil. If it feels on the dry side, the plants will need watering. But remember: it harms plants more to overwater than under water them.

For vertical green walls, it’s best to spray the water at the soil of each to avoid dripping or overwatering.

6. Follow These General Tips

  • Try to place the green wall in a room that has good air circulation. That way, the plants will purify more air throughout your home.
  • Choose plants for your indoor living wall that tend to spread out easily. These could be ferns, ivy, spider plants and philodendron, for example.
  • For maximising air purity, choose plants that are great air filters. The Red-edged Dracaena plant is one of the most effective plants to remove pollutants, especially the formaldehyde that’s found in paints, wallpaper and smoke from fireplaces. Snake Plants are good for releasing oxygen and the Broadleaf Lady Palm removes ammonia, a chemical found in cleaning products. Finally, Aloe Vera fights benzene found in detergents and plastics.
  • Should you get any pests crawling in your green wall, kill them in a natural way! Fill a spray bottle with 1 part dishwashing liquid with 3 parts water and mist the offenders with the mix.
  • Choose to add a few edible plants like rosemary and parsley so you have herbs on hand when you need them.

After choosing your favourite flowers and plants and learning how to care for them, you’re ready to start enjoying the benefits of having a bit of nature brought right into your home!

Main image: Ronald Lu & Partners

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