A tapestry of plants

Concrete, blacktop, high rise buildings, dumpsters, bridges and other paved and solid structures are a reality of urban landscapes. Though trees, hanging baskets and planters can break up the monotony of man-made features, artist and horticulturist Dave MacKenzie has a different vision. Imagine if a diverse selection of plants draped those normally stark surfaces, creating colorful palettes that mimic paintings and tapestries in cities across the country? That was MacKenzie’s inspiration for “Back to Eden,” a 130-feet-long by 11-feet-tall live plant wall he created for the 2013 ArtPrize, an international art competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and an idea he believes could work on a larger scale to beautify urban areas.

MacKenzie, president of Hortech, a Michigan-based nursery and plant wholesaler that designs and manufactures the organic rooftop and vertical wall plant-based systems LiveWall and LiveRoof, also believes if people knew the benefits of the vertical wall gardens, more would build them.

“Anything that we do to vegetate surfaces that we’ve removed the vegetation from is not only a good thing but a necessary thing,” says MacKenzie.
 

The power of plants

During ArtPrize, a 19-day art show with juried and public prizes that attracts artists and visitors from around the world, MacKenzie watched and listened as people responded to the 1,400 square-foot garden canvas. They smiled and were moved by the New Guinea impatiens, green peppers, plump, red strawberries, parsley, lemongrass, purple kale and begonias. He planted about 2,500 plants of 60 different varieties in rectangular wall planters mounted near a fence to create the installation.

Anyone over the age of 18 can enter the competition, which fills 3 square miles of downtown Grand Rapids. But "Back to Eden" was one of the few plant-based entries in a show that boasts a variety of mediums such as photography, sculpture, music, textiles and more.

"Probably the biggest surprise for us was how phenomenally and enthusiastically the public responded to this. ArtPrize attracts about 500,000 people to the Grand Rapids community, and I would guess that at least half of them saw our wall," MacKenzie says. "And at least 25,000 of them were interested in it enough to take one of our cards."

“Back to Eden” was built near The Big Old Building, or The B.O.B., a popular downtown venue that houses restaurants, a comedy club and more. And, like any mall or business district, it’s also dotted with dumpsters, compactors and other unsightly objects.

“That was another thing that really caused people to react emotionally, because it was in stark contrast to what had been there before,” MacKenzie says. “We see this all the time with roof gardens, too. A normal rooftop is a hot, unattractive, tar-laden, nasty mess. When you go from that to something with flowers and leaves, it’s magical.”
 

A living medium

Unlike most pieces in the competition, the wall is alive and changes throughout the day as the blossoms open and close. That also led to some interesting challenges and last-minute changes. Though MacKenzie has 30 years of experience growing perennial plants and has run several tests to try annual varieties on vertical structures, there were still unexpected issues with plants.

“Because I was learning about annual plants and designing with them, there was a fair amount of stress that I felt because I didn’t think I had control over the situation to the degree that I would normally want to as a grower and a designer,” he says, adding that his specialty is perennials, but he wanted to use annuals in the wall, too. “Some plants decided to quit flowering, so I had to do a lot of designing on the fly.”

MacKenzie started the project in April and used practice walls, but he nurtured the piece down to the last minute, pruning and planting, and his efforts were well-received. ArtPrize attendees ranked his living wall in the top 25 of more than 1,500 entries, an honor MacKenzie credits to the plants, not his own design. Perhaps it sounds modest, but he may be onto something: two other entries that landed in the top 25 featured greenery such as grape vines, bamboo and moss.
 

A new generation

The trial and error MacKenzie experienced while creating "Back to Eden" mimicked the four-year process it took to test and determine which plants work best in the LiveWall vertical planter system. Before he developed LiveWall, he says his clients were frustrated by some products on the market at the time. But green walls have improved, he says, and gardeners can be successful with them.

“What we’re looking for is a reset button. We’re trying to tell people to pause and look at the historical development in planted walls and understand why some of the pioneering efforts didn’t work very well,” he says. “There’s a more scientifically valid approach to making plant selections, and we need to get away from this business of thinking that they can’t work.”

And there’s something about a plant being suspended in the air, with consistent watering, that makes it grow better, MacKenzie says. Plants in containers are also less likely to be exposed to pests and disease. And the watering system can be timed so that people don’t have to worry about plants dying while they’re away on vacation.

MacKenzie says kids are captivated by green walls, and the tall, vertical planters are an option for people who can’t work in traditional gardens because of back pain or other physical problems.

“Certain things I would never expect to grow well in a container, like carrots, have grown phenomenally well,” MacKenzie says.

MacKenzie has already started his ArtPrize wall for 2014, and he and the owner of The B.O.B., Gregory Gilmore, have agreed to continue displaying “Back to Eden” for at least another year. MacKenzie has replanted the wall with cold hardy varieties.

“The connection or reaction people have is much more than a normal garden. Vertical gardens transform something that previously was accepted or unattractive into something that is magical,” MacKenzie says. “People had tears in their eyes because the connection was so strong. I know I’ve done my work well when I can make someone cry.

“In the times that I did, it wasn’t so much the artistry. I did an OK job with the design, but more than anything, it was the plants that were speaking to them.”