I’d always wanted a plant wall in my home and had earmarked a wall for it even before our renovation building work had started. I love the inside-outside connection it brings and the lushness it adds to the space. Each time I’ve posted it on instagram, I’ve received dozens of DMs asking how I did it, so I figured that called for a blog post. It’s really easy to achieve, as hopefully the guidelines below will show. I say guidelines, not instructions, because you don’t need to follow them to the letter, you can do it your way.
WHAT YOU NEED
- a wall that gets bright indirect light
- easygoing trailing houseplants (see below)
- indoor wall planters (without drainage holes) in a similar colour to your wall
- the right tools and fittings to mount the planters on your wall
Below are the varieties of pothos and philodendrons I have which I find very easy to care for as they can tolerate a bit of neglect. If you would like big impact from the start, buy them in larger sizes.
I bought white wall planters to blend in with my white wall, so that they don’t distract from the beauty and lushness of the plants. Whatever your wall colour, I would recommend matching the planter colour to it. You can buy any wall planters that will accommodate a 14-15cm inside plant pot. The planters I bought are no longer available but these are similar: White Lightweight Wall Planters (size Large). Each comes with a self watering internal pot but I didn’t use that. You can though. I just used the outer pots as cache pots and the plants are planted in ordinary 14cm draining plastic pots.
METHOD
I didn’t overplan this (very unlike me!) and just made it up as I went along, with help from my husband who held up the planters and moved them around while I looked from a few steps back with a hand on my chin giving very helpful directions like “up a bit, down a bit, just a tiny bit higher now, like 4mm….”.
When I was happy with the height, we mounted the first planter in the middle of wall, then judged how far apart I wanted the next one. This determined the distance between the planters, and we fitted 2 on either side of the first one, giving a row of 5 planters.
I decided I wanted a dense look, so added another row of 4 planters below the first row.
I know it doesn’t look like much in the photo above but it’s just to show how the planters are positioned. I bought baby plants in small pots because I was figuring this out as I went along and I was happy to wait for them to grow. As I said earlier, if you’d like a bigger impact from the start, buy the plants in bigger sizes so they already have long trailing vines.
These plants are relatively fast growers and in about a year they went from the baby plants in the photo above to the long trailers in the photo below.
PLANT CARE
During the growing season, I water the plants about once a week when the soil feels dry and add some plant feed to the water once a month. In winter, I water less – about once a fortnight – and again, only when the soil feels dry. Remember, don’t water if the soil is still damp, as nothing kills a plant quicker than overwatering. It’s helpful to have a little plant know-how so read up on the care for these plants, including repotting into larger pots, and propagation when the vines get really long and you have to cut them.
And that’s it! Enjoy your living, growing art. If you have any questions, please feel free to message me or leave a comment below. 💚
