Vertical Gardens - Not as new as you think!

Vertical gardening, living walls, or green walls – these are phrases we use a lot when talking about greening up our cities and towns to make them happier, healthier, cleaner & greener places to live and work.

New technology enables us to green up any surface – vertical, sloped, curved or suspended; Modern engineering of buildings demands modern technology but the principle of engineering green into our built environment is far from new.

The Original Vertical Garden

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the seven wonders of the world as listed by Hellenic culture, described as a remarkable feat of engineering with an ascending series of tiered gardens containing a wide variety of trees, shrubs, and vines, resembling a large green mountain constructed of mud bricks, and said to have been built in the ancient city of Bablyon, near present-day Hillah in Babil province, in Iraq.

According to one legend, the King Nebuchadnezzar 11, who ruled between 605 and 562 BC, built the Hanging Gardens, alongside a grand palace that came to be known as The Marvel of Mankind, for his wife, Queen Amytis, because she missed the green hills and valleys of her homeland. It seems that the benefits of plants were well known then!

Real archaeological evidence of the gardens has never been defined but three theories have been suggested to account for this, one that it was purely mythical and represented a romantic ideal of an eastern garden, two – that they did exist in Babylon but were completely destroyed and finally that the legend refers to a well-documented garden that the Assyrian King Sennacherib built in Mosul.

Whatever the true origins of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon – imaginary or mythical, the idea that abundant greenery could be added to buildings and onto terraces, with trailing or climbing plants was seen as very desirable, today in 2018 it remains very desirable. Creating vertical gardens in cramped city spaces is easily achieved with today’s smart green technology – living walls can be installed from light-wells to roof tops offering building users from residential to workers in offices the opportunity to access nature and to feel a little more human.

The Scotscape team can help you to create a vertical garden at your home or place of work. Should you wish to contact one of our friendly team click here to get in touch