garden

fresh
in France], the more excited they get. We can't keep books on the subject
in stock, and our customers have been asking us to do this type of
installation for them. This was a perfect opportunity to try it out."
Perfect because in this case, Grubb and her fiance, Kevin Smith,
who is also a builder, were the clients. Working with their best friend,
architect Seth Boor, the trio transformed a tiny cottage — that for
more than 50 years was Betty May's School of Tap — behind their
home in the Mission District of San Francisco into cozy living quarters
with about a 40-square-foot garden.
Grubb found that weight posed the largest challenge to building
a vertical garden. Their solution was to customize a wall to provide
both strength to hang the planting structure on as well as to hide an
irrigation system that is piped into the back of the piece. The water
then drips down into the planting bed below.
As for the garden itself, Grubb chose succulents for their hardiness
and for their jewel-box look. "Putting a frame around the plants
and hanging them on the wall like a work of art makes you think differently
about them. You see them in this unexpected context and it
makes them even more fascinating. It reminds me of a mandala [a
geometric design representing the universe and used as a spiritual
aid in meditation]. It draws you in."
When it comes to her small-space garden, Grubb says: "The lesson
is that less is more only when more is too much. Let your small
garden spaces live large." floragrubb.com — MEGAN PADILLA
16 GARDEN DESIGN APRIL 09
GREEN-WALL DESIGNERS
>■ Jane Hansen of Lango Hansen Landscape Architects led her team in
repurposing the exterior of an outdated Portland, Oregon, Days Inn Hotel
into the oh-so-relevant Hotel Modera. The focal point is a green-wall
system comprised of l-foot-by-l-foot planted cells — each containing
only one species of plant — arranged in a grid pattern. Next up? A green
wall for an interior lobby space that will call upon a palette of tropical
plants, langohansen.com
>■ When faced with designing plantings for an 800-square-foot, year-rounduse
rooftop garden on a Manhattan brownstone, Michael Madarash of
KokoBo Plantscapes added a 14-foot-tall vertical garden comprised
entirely of sedums. His firm has been experimenting at its garden center
for about two years and has a half-dozen vertical gardens soon to be
installed. Says Madarash, "While cost may be prohibitive in certain situations,
everyone is interested!" kokobo.com
>- Boston's third-generation floral designer Winston Flowers has launched
a new branch of the business: custom garden design and installation. On
their hot list? Green walls. Winston made a splash in certain circles with
a temporary wall created for the 2008 charity event, Dining by Design,
last year in Boston. Though the installation was created out of cut
materials, the design firm has all its suppliers tagged to provide the real
thing, winstonflowers.com