subject: DIY Living Walls. Using Woolly Pockets in the UK. Garden Beet's Verdict. 'Highly Recommend' [print this page] DIY Living WallsDIY Living Walls. Using Woolly Pockets in the UK. Garden Beet's Verdict. 'Highly Recommend'
Woolly Pockets are a living wall planter that allows people to build their own vertical garden on most indoor or outdoor walls.
The DIY living wall pockets are made from a fabric manufactured from recycled plastic bottles. The fabric enables a plant's root system to breathe (thereby providing a healthy growing environment) whilst conserving water usage.
For those who are uncertain of the product performance Garden Beet can confirm the living wall system has worked very well during our trial plantings in London throughout 2010.
Garden Beet is a retailer of the Woolly Pocket. Nevertheless we have done our best to make an independent evaluation of the product. Based on our observations to date, we can Highly Recommend Woolly Pocket wall planters.
Woolly Pockets UK. The first plantings in Europe.
Garden Beet's planting of Woolly Pockets in the UK began in September 2009 and became more wide ranging in April 2010 in preparation for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Two living walls were set up in Garden Beet's communal back garden. The planting of these particular walls began in early April 2010.
If you stumble across images of Garden Beet's living walls (for example on various green wall pages of our website) and look closely you will notice that plants change location. This is because these are trial plantings. Garden Beet still continues to rearrange the plants well after the Chelsea Flower Show. Vertical gardening lends itself to plant rearrangement. You can easily tend to your garden without the need to constantly bend. A great gardening feature for the elderly and disabled.
Woolly Pocket plant performance in the UK.
In summary most plants performed very well. Garden Beet found plants in the pockets require less water than those in traditional terra cotta pots. We believe the felted fabric does a good job of conserving water.
Furthermore, one of the major benefits promoted by the designer of Woolly Pockets is the breathability' of the felted material - it allows the root system to be air pruned as opposed to becoming pot bound.
Every plant that Garden Beet removed from a pocket has shown signs of a healthy fibrous root system. The root system does penetrate the fabric to some extent but appears to stop if it does not find soil.
For detailed findings and plant lists please refer to our more detailed Review of Woolly Pockets.
So how do the Woolly Pockets cope in the UK?
All our trial plantings were completed in demonstration pockets.
All our demonstration pockets were relocated around various parts of London, replanted, stood on, thrown around and generally were given a hard time by Garden Beet.
After the Chelsea Flower Show all the pockets were taken from the display wall, piled on top of each other in a very small van and driven to Garden Beet's home. All planted pockets remained fully intact during and post transit.
Each pocket was then returned to Garden Beet's walls.
Half of the pockets on the display wall have since been sold. The planted pockets were simply inserted into the back seats of various cars and then carried to their next destination. Two people were required when moving the larger Wally Three and Five and only one person for a Wally One.
Pretty nifty hey!
The itinerant tenant's answer to a long term garden.
Prior to the Chelsea Flower Show Garden Beet replanted and replanted the Woolly Pockets. Garden Beet was experimenting with colour, texture and form. During this process there was less concern for the pockets welfare than the final visual effect of the planting arrangements.
It is now November 2010 and all pockets are still in good robust condition except for two pockets which only failed under severe stress tests.
After much replanting in those two pockets Garden Beet decided to replant them again with the absolute maximum volume of soil. Then Garden Beet squeezed in plants in two rigid oversized plastic pots. (Garden Beet always goes beyond the manufacturer's recommendation to test a products limit).
Yep - the stitching tore.
Regardless, one of the two pockets remains planted to this day. The other has since been taken down for repair.
The wall behind the Woolly Pockets
So what has happened behind the pockets?
Garden Beet's brick walls and our client's timber fences show no signs of moisture, water marks or root damage.
The back of the outdoor pockets can become a haven for spiders, cobwebs and snails. Of course spiders and insects are all part of gardening. We all have to live and work together - its a management issue that can be easily overcome with a bit of common sense.
VERDICT: Highly Recommend.
Woolly Pockets are adaptable and make gardening possible for those who have little outdoor space, find bending difficult or would like to soften their walls with plants other than the usual plant suspects such as ivy. With minimal effort the pockets appear to create healthy robust homes for a vast range of plants that could otherwise never perform well and/or look as good on walls without a huge living wall budget.
