Orchids on living green walls (Planted Pillars)

[pleurothallid]

I've recently become very interested in doing some indoor vertical gardening:





As I've been doing some terrariums lately, many of which include orchids:





So combining the two ideas, I really wanted to have some indoor orchid exhibit. I started by trying a few species of orchids on my green wall: Masdavallia auropurporea, Scaphosepalum rapax and Lepanthes yunckeri. The L. yunckeri did well but I wanted it in the terrarium so I snagged it off before too long. The others rooted in about two weeks and lasted a month on the green wall. As the larger leaved plants started creeping up towards them, it was time to build something new.

I call these Planted Pillars, it's essentially a tube shaped living green wall. They have all internal drip irrigation and are made of 100% recycled material green wall fabric. The first one has been set up only a week now, but I'm really pleased with it. All lighting in the images here is done by means of PAR 38 LEDs, which I use on all my planted projects. They indeed grow plants very well. Here's some images of the prototype Planted Pillar:

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/49521122@N06/8177411461/]


[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/49521122@N06/8177442432/]

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/49521122@N06/8177442648/]

I wanted to share these as I thought it may be a new growing style that people may be interested in. I post regular updates of my projects on my Planted Glass Box facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/plantedglassboxes

I don't want to post anything related to sales here, but if you go to the facebook page and contact me I can provide that type of information there.

Thanks for looking, hope you enjoy.

[Magnus A]

Nice setup, but it is not new...
Maybe for you but this kind of setup has been around for years in the orchid growing community...

[pleurothallid]

The ones I knew before were the clay tubes or Epiweb/Ecoweb. This is fabric which is a bit different. I don't mean to imply this entirely novel, just a new take/style. Sorry, I'm not too involved in the orchid community, I grow some at home and see more in the wild.

[naoki]

It looks interesting, but do they reliably flower every year (especially those near the bottom)?

[JaneEyre]

This looks great! Hopefully it will be enough light for the orchids at the bottom. I'd love to see how your wall progresses over time.

[pleurothallid]

In my terrariums I regularly reflowed plants. I've flowered two on the wall, and one other in a paludarium I have that utilized a similar drip system. The pillar has only been set up for one week so far so I can't speak to blooms for some time. The lighting is misrepresented in the cell phone photos, it's indeed quite bright.

[GardenTheater]

That looks wonderful. At a home and garden show, I saw 6 or 7 foot pillars like this for outdoor landscaping. This is a nice size for indoors.

[naoki]

Originally Posted by pleurothallid

In my terrariums I regularly reflowed plants. I've flowered two on the wall, and one other in a paludarium I have that utilized a similar drip system. The pillar has only been set up for one week so far so I can't speak to blooms for some time. The lighting is misrepresented in the cell phone photos, it's indeed quite bright.

That's cool! Could you tell us which brand/model of LED it is if you don't mind? Are they expensive?

[DelawareJim]

Nice! Are those plant LEDs over the tubes?

Cheers.
Jim

[pleurothallid]

The LEDs are ones I got off Ebay just doing a search for PAR 38 LEDs. The dominant spectrum is 6000k, so not a traditional plant bulb by any means, but I've been using them a few months and all sorts of tropical plants are growing really well with them. I know LED conversations often open a can of worms so I'll only express my observation with them over the 96 watt PCs I used previously. I visually find the wavelength to be more like when I've had to move a terrarium and had it outside in daylight, I also found that plants (including orchids) have responded positively to them. I have a lot of absolute irradiance measures from different forests and I haven't compared them to the bulbs to compare peak wavelength, but we all know a limitation of LEDs is their lack of spectrum. So as with all indoor lighting, take this experience with a grain of salt.