Student needing help on a vertical garden

5 years ago

Hi, I'm a UK art student whose always been interested in gardening but has never had the opportunity to pursue it. I recently moved into a new house near my uni and in the process of redecorating my room decided I would build a feature piece in the form of a free standing vertical garden above my desk. So far the entire project has been done on a tight budget using only what I could acquire cheap or free. Left overs from the sculpture studio namely pallets, old decking, screws, wood glue and equipment on lease, have made up most the structure.

[current state of self standing vertical garden, waiting to be painted before the waterproof lining is installed followed by the pockets. The gaps at the bottom are for my laptop and printer to fit in once its installed on top of my desk.]

Once the structure is finished it should have enough pockets to hold 24 plants and two 600mm troughs at the bottom. I plan on using the troughs for my ever expanding carnivorous plant collection and would like the vertical section to follow in an accordingly rainforest/tropical fashion

[example photo; I'm particularly interested in displaying a different variety of plants, focusing on leaf size, shape, colour, texture and the way they fall. However I would also like a couple of feature plants with vibrant colour: Orchids, Bird of Paradise Plants, Ginger Lily, Wandering Jew Plant and Red Croton all spring to mind]

However I have very little knowledge on the names or types of plants that would go well together to achieve this. The room this shall be installed in only has one north facing window which boasts a highly obstructed view of the house next door. As a result my room receives little daylight although being next to the boiler is always warm and I would be happy to adapt the current structure to hold artificial lighting if it were an issue. Although as a student budget is a huge issue, currently the entire project has cost me around £25 and realistically speaking I only have another £30-£40 to spend.

Therefore I'm looking to answer the following questions;

What plants should I be looking at buying?
Where could I cheaply source such plants?

Thanks in advance for any help, its much appreciated

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Comments (2)

tropicbreezent
5 years ago
Two of your big issues would be light and humidity. Some of the plants you list won't survive or at best won't do well in low light. And many plants under low light will become tall and spindly with reduced leaves. That won't give you the effect you want. Being near a source of heat means the relative humidity of the air in the room will tend to be very low. If you already have carnivorous plants you'll probably realise a lot of them like strong light. A lot of ferns (not all) like low light but also humidity. So you'll need to select carefully to not end up sending too many plants to an early grave.

I'm not in the UK so don't know about sourcing plants. But there is a UK hardy tropicals forum on the web. I think they're mainly about garden plants but some people there would still probably be able to give you good information.
cranky341 thanked tropicbreezent
floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
My concern would be water damage to wall and desk, especially since I assume the house doesn’t belong to you. Another thing is what you’re going to do with it outside term time.

if you’re a novice I’d start with easy things like spider plants and tradescantia before spending money on more exotic subjects. See how the set up functions first. It might even be better to just buy a couple of pot plants as an experiment and see if they even survive in your conditions. Btw warmth isn’t always a good thing for house plants over and above about 20c. The main requirements are light and moisture.
cranky341 thanked floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
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Student needing help on a vertical garden

Comments (2)

tropicbreezent

floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK

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