If you were put in front of a living wall and asked for feedback, what do you think your response might be? That it looks nice? That you feel calm and relaxed? Or maybe you would say you feel healthier, simply from being close to it.
That’s the thing about living walls – they look quite spectacular, and in my book that alone is a good enough reason to spend time in their company. However, visual aesthetics are far from the only benefit. In today’s environment of ever increasing concrete, traffic, noise and pollution, plant greenery can be a therapy to ease life’s stresses and strains. Living walls can provide that connection to nature, which is so often lacking in the modern world.
In a setting where people’s health might be compromised, such as hospitals, the presence of a living wall can go some way to improving patients’ wellbeing. As well as the calming affects plants have on humans in general, it is thought that the influence of permanent greenery could even go as far as cultivating improvement clinically, such as being able to reduce patients’ pain-relieving medication or leading to shortened hospital visits.
It is not only humans that can thrive on the presence of green walls – they are essentially complex eco habitats that encourage biodiversity and provide a haven for many forms of wildlife. A standard living wall comprises a carefully selected combination of plant species creating a sustainable environment for many creatures; and importantly, much needed extra habitat for urban wildlife.
It’s worth asking the question of why we feel noticeably calmer around greenery. It could be due to humans’ evolutionary bond with plants. According to some eye specialists, the human eye can distinguish between more than 1,500 shades of green but only 100 shades of red. As humankind has evolved, to detect a plant’s shade of green was crucial for deciding if it should be eaten, used medicinally or for shelter. This could be one of the reasons why we feel so comfortable around plants and why life feels more enriched and harmonious when they are part of our day-to-day existence.