In 1938, Professor Stanley Hart White introduced the Vegetation-bearing Architectonic Structure and System, now known as the Vertical Garden. This system allows people to grow and harvest their food and benefit from self-sufficiency and better nutrition. In this blog, we’ll learn about the various benefits of vertical gardening.
Benefits of Vertical Gardening
A green wall, or popularly known as vertical garden, can be attached to a building’s exterior or interior. Unlike a green facade, the plant’s roots are in structural support on the wall, receiving water and nutrients from within the vertical structure rather than the ground. This explains what is a vertical garden and how it works. The major benefits of vertical gardening are as follows:
| Parameters | Advantages of Vertical Gardening |
| Optimizes accurately | Optimizes small spaces, provides privacy, enhances aesthetics, and reduces pests and diseases. |
| Acts as Natural Barrier | Absorbs noise and promotes a quieter environment. Eliminates concerns about proper waste disposal. |
| Promotes quality of life | Maximizes plant growth in a smaller area and improves the quality of crops. Creates habitats for birds, butterflies, and insects. |
| Purifies air | Filters air particles, aids in preventing soil erosion, and absorbs rainwater. Minimizes exposure to harmful chemicals and pesticides. |
| Saves energy | Cools the air through evapotranspiration, leading to significant energy savings. |
| Beneficial for Health | Eliminates the need for frequent bending and kneeling. Boosts mental and physical health. |
The modern and popularized concept of vertical gardens is credited to French botanist Patrick Blanc, who has created green walls in various European spaces. This innovative and productive growing system utilizes bottom-up and top-down supports for various plants in small or large garden spaces.
1. Space-Efficient
It is one of the top benefits of vertical gardening. Growing plants vertically maximize limited spaces like balconies, patios, or small gardens. Vertical gardening also creates privacy screens, enhances aesthetics, and lowers the risk of pest and disease issues by keeping plants elevated. With proper setup and care, you can vertically cultivate a variety of plants, including vegetables, herbs, and flowers, ensuring a plentiful harvest while optimizing your space.
2. Reduces Bending and Kneeling
Accessing plants becomes easier, as they are elevated and within reach, reducing the necessity for stretching or straining. This makes gardening more enjoyable and accessible, promoting healthier and more active lifestyles for a broader range of individuals.
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3. Improvise Accessibility
It’s suitable for small patios, balconies, or indoor areas, especially for those with limited space or mobility. It allows the cultivation of various plants in a compact space. Vertical gardens can be designed with accessibility in mind, enabling individuals using mobility aids like wheelchairs or walkers to easily reach their plants. This is another great advantage of vertical gardening.
4. Enhances Aesthetic
Using colorful flowers, herbs, and plants, you can craft a stunning display that adds color and texture to your space. Additionally, it can provide a sense of privacy, whether used to screen an unsightly view or create a cozy nook for relaxation. With the right plant and structure combination, vertical gardening becomes a beautiful and eye-catching addition to any space.
5. Provides Privacy
Plant a vertical garden outside your windows, shielding your rooms from prying eyes. It also offers shade from sunlight and privacy from crowds and unruly neighbors.
6. Boosts Physical and Mental Health
Plants improve your physical health by producing oxygen and purifying the air, reducing respiratory issues and blood pressure. They protect against diseases and allergies caused by harmful gases, minimizing pollen exposure. Vertical gardens also raise humidity, preventing coughs by moisturizing mucous membranes, throat, and skin. For mental health, these gardens boost concentration, uplift mood, and reduce stress, providing a sense of relaxation and visual relief.
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7. Reduces Noise
Growing plants vertically creates a natural sound barrier, absorbing noise and promoting a quieter, more peaceful environment. This is particularly helpful for those living in noisy urban areas or near busy roads. This gardening technique can also lower indoor noise levels, making it an excellent addition to home offices.
8. Improves Air Circulation and Quality
Vertical plant growth improves spacing, reduces overcrowding, and enhances airflow to prevent fungal diseases and promote healthy growth. It also improves sunlight exposure, aids leaf drying, and prevents moisture build-ups. Improving air circulation promotes plant health and productivity, and also reduces the risk of disease.
Plants in a vertical garden filter air particles and turn carbon dioxide into oxygen. One square meter of plant space can produce a year’s supply of oxygen for a person and capture 130g of dust.
9. Promotes Water Conservation
Vertical gardens absorb rainwater through plants, acting as a natural water reserve. Process slows down rainwater flow to sewer, purifies it, returns water via evaporation. It stabilizes groundwater, reduces sewage stress, and prevents floods. These gardens are increasingly popular in large cities, not just for their visual appeal but also to balance the urban landscape, improving health and sustainability.
10. Reduces Soil Erosion
This gardening technique aids in less soil erosion compared to traditional methods. Growing plants vertically helps prevent erosion from heavy rain or wind. It also shields the soil from foot traffic that can compact and erode it.
Using support structures like trellises or hanging baskets minimizes soil disturbance, preserving its nutrients. This reduction in soil erosion is one of the environmental benefits of vertical gardening that helps maintain healthy soil, preventing runoff that could contribute to water pollution.
Cross-Reference: Advantages Of Having A Vertical Garden
11. Produces Higher Yield
You can grow more plants in a smaller area, maximizing your yield per square foot. This arrangement also boosts exposure to sunlight and air circulation, promoting healthy growth and greater yields. By using trellises or other supports, you can train plants to grow in specific patterns, such as espalier or pruning methods, further enhancing their yield potential.
12. Enhances Food Safety
Growing your own vegetables and herbs provides control over growing conditions, ensuring your food is free from harmful chemicals and pesticides. This minimizes exposure to toxins and encourages healthier eating habits. Vertical gardening further reduces the risk of foodborne illnesses by enabling clean and controlled produce growth, lowering the potential for contamination.
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13. Prevents Diseases and Pests
Trellises for climbing plants slow down the spread of soil-borne fungus and disease, maintaining plant health and easier to shield them. Elevating vining vegetables and flowers off the ground reduces the likelihood of rot and protects them from ground-dwelling pests.
You can use chicken wire or garden fencing to encircle each plant, protecting them from hungry animals. All this prevents diseases and pests in plants which is among the primary objectives of vertical gardening.
14. Promotes Biodiversity
Plants in a vertical garden create habitats for birds, butterflies, and insects, especially in urban areas. In general, urban ecosystems support habitats for various species, contributing to increased biodiversity in the environment.
15. Insulates Building and Reduces Energy Cost
A lesser-known benefit of vertical gardens is their ability to cut energy costs. Vertical gardens cool air by evapotranspiration, which is the process of moving water from the surface to the atmosphere through evaporation and transpiration. External vertical walls can lower the wall surface temperature by around 50° to 70° F.
16. Increases Sun Exposure
In a shady garden, vining plants can grow upwards toward the sun, thriving better than if left to grow on the ground. This is one of the reasons why vertical gardening is important.
17. Offers Varying Plant Options
In a vertical garden, you can experiment with planting various types of plants, including decorative and vegetable plants, in rows to enhance the garden’s aesthetics. Additionally, maintaining a vertical garden is more convenient.
18. Produces Beautiful Vegetables and Cleaner Crops
When trellised, fruits grow straight due to gravity. This method also prevents unsightly yellow spots on heavier vegetables, which can happen when left on the ground. This farming process produces cleaner food by preventing soil splashing.
Whether using containers or trellising vines, vertical gardening makes your garden healthier, improves crop quality, and reduces the time spent on weeding, feeding, spraying, and watering.
19. Reuses and Repurpose Waste
Having a vertical garden eliminates concerns about proper waste disposal. You can create a DIY vertical garden using various waste products like old shoes, a broken ladder, plastic bottles, an old basket, and more unexpected items. While benefiting humans, it also contributes to environmental protection.
20. Simplifies Maintenance
Vertical gardening is a favorite because it makes garden upkeep much simpler. When using vertical containers, maintenance becomes easier as issues like weeds, ground-dwelling pests, and soilborne diseases practically disappear.
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To sum up, vertical gardening is a one-time investment that lets you enjoy 100% organic produce. As mentioned earlier, the advantages of vertical gardening outweigh its drawbacks. Once you grasp your garden’s requirements, setting up your vertical arrangement is a quick process.
