Green Walls & Roof Gardens

What sits under the plants is the real project

From outside, a green wall or roof garden is plants. Inside, it is a layered system: waterproofing, root barrier, drainage layer, growing medium and irrigation. The planting is the last layer and the cheapest part — the layers beneath decide whether the project survives or becomes a damp problem inside the building.

Most failures come from skipping one of those layers to cut cost. The difficulty is that they are completely hidden after completion, so the saving is invisible at handover — it appears a year later as a damp patch.

Load is not a detail

Saturated soil is appreciably heavy, and the load spikes immediately after irrigation. That is why load calculation precedes design rather than following it. Where a roof is not built for the extra load, systems using media far lighter than soil exist — but that decision is taken before work starts, not after.

Orientation decides the planting

A vertical wall is harsher than ground: restricted rooting, faster drainage, direct exposure. On top of that, orientation changes everything — a north wall sits in near-permanent shade while a south or west wall takes direct sun through the hottest hours.

Irrigation on walls behaves differently

Gravity pulls water down, so the top of a wall always dries faster than the bottom. A correct system compensates with uneven emitter distribution — more points at the top — and first-month monitoring that tunes those differences against reality rather than theory.

Maintenance is a condition, not an option

A green wall needs more attention than any ground planting. We say this before installation so the decision is made on the full picture: a very strong visual element, with ongoing requirements.