Portland vertical garden

portland vertical garden

I generally like the idea of vertical gardens and urban greening. But this one planned as part of the green renovation of the 18-story federal building in Portland, Ore., profiled in this morning’s NY Times seems like a stretch.

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6 thoughts on “Portland vertical garden”

  1. Yeah, its not an actual garden – just some plants growing on the wall. Hard to believe that trying to keep plants alive up there is really the cheapest way to shade windows…

  2. OK Kim. Here are a couple of excerpts, though they keep things a tad on the vague side:

    ““They will bloom in the spring and summer when you want the shade, and then they will go away in the winter when you want to let the light in,” said Bob Peck, commissioner of public buildings for the G.S.A. “Don’t ask me how you get them irrigated.”

    “Who will prune the facade? Maybe the same folks who wash skyscraper windows, the architects say. Perhaps the exterior concrete panels removed in the renovation could be reused as salmon habitat in a nearby river.”

    My snark detector is whizzing.

  3. This is going to be one massive vertical garden. It’s part of a 130 million dollar budget I believe to renovate the building. But the vertical garden is going to take a huge chunk of that budget. They’d likely have to pre-grow each panel with sedums or other types of plants that can grow on walls. They also have to find plants that are able to grow 250 ft in the air which will have a lot more exposure to wind and sun. That’ll be quite the challenge.

  4. Thanks, Craig. I can see why your snark detector is whizzing… at the very least, it seems to be poorly thought out in terms of maintenance! But boy, doesn’t it “sound” good…

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