Little pond with vertical garden

ohbly, i wanted to thank you for your book recommendation. i bought a former library copy off of amazon for 9 bucks and it turned out to be absolutely worth it. i havent started a vertical garden yet but i plan on putting them all over the house! :)
i'd love to see some updates from your pond.

no worries:) and you got it for a steal at 9 bucks!
Not much to update, its autumn here now so growth has slowed down.
I picked up some brom pups and added them to the wall.
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I'm expecting mosses to grow really well over winter
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I put a little patch of moss on the fabric and its spreading fast, but not as fast as the babies tears.
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Hi
That is very similar to the idea I used in my shadehouse except I used a 150 gallon aquarium as the reservoir , the wall behind ended up being 10x7 feet high lol I made it of painted expanding foam . Made a 16x72 inch Marsh garden behing the top edge of the aquarium/ place to collect water before being returned to the tank . The plants went hog wild causing the water to divert so couldn't run it constantly then the aquarium started to leak lol.
This is the setup I'm now trying to convert to a terrarium that I asked about on the Terrariums forum. Have a few bugs though
Yours looks fantastic!!! Needs to be MUCH larger .
What no orchids??? Must be a bazillion species tht would love that setup!!!
gary
 
Hi, When you say you made it out of expanding foam, is that polystyrene foam? plus what did you use to grow the plants on?
I can only get white capillary cloth here. I thought I could dye it a more natural colour, until I learnt how difficult it is to dye polyester.
Were you running a pump constantly? I've had mine on for three minutes an hour. Now that winters approaching I'm planning on dialling it down to one.
I think that the reason the plants on my wall are growing slowly is because the plants in the pond have more access to the nutrients in the water.

As for it needing to be bigger I agree, but I move around a bit, and I need to be able to unscrew it and put it in the back of my car. Same goes for the little pond..

I've got crucifix orchids on it, but some other small orchids would be very nice..
 
Hi
I used the canned called "Great stuff " used to fill cracks in walls as an insulation.
I believe the chemical name is "Cyanoacrylic"??? Comes out of the can like shaving cream and hardens into various shapes. The "wall" is against the house wall in my attached shadehouse. I installed the plumbing then covered with the foam attempting to make it look like a roc wall. made various pockets and also added some natural materials such as drift wood tree fern fiber and cork bark.. Painted it with acrylic latex paint Much to my surprise the plants actually rooted directly into the material
causing the water to divert so couldn't run it 24/7. The main purpose was for wet/wet orchids , and several other moisture loving epiphytes . but when it started to leak altered to wet dry orchids . Then the tank started to leak so I had to shut down the aquarium / reservoir. Am now attempting to convert to warm humid terrarium and watering is done with the regular irrigation system in the SH.
Since most of the wall plants were epiphytes i used crushed lava stone as a media
but since it's now holding mostly Cattleyas ,Epidendrum and Lailia orchids have mostly switched to tree fern fiber. Had to switch the epi fern ferns to selaginells due to excessive drying but also taking advantage of this with epiphytic succulents. They are rooted directly into the foam.
I had such great plans for this setup foiled by mechanical problems lol
gary
 
^ that sounds like an enormous vivarium background. You must have needed heaps of canned foam?
Any chance of a pic?
 
Hi
The backgroung wall is 10 feet wide x7 feet high. The background of the aquarium was also done with foam also Took 7 cans but was done in several stages over about a year.
Not any good pix I'm afraid . The most you can get away from the wall is around 3 feet due to planting on thee opposite wall. Can't get the entire setup into one pic
A long view is blocked by my epiphyte trees. So you end up with only pieces. The entire wall was covered with plants within two months lol. You can get partial views
but require explaining as to what it is lol. Due to the tank receiving natural light all underwater pix resulted in pix of my self ,or reflections of other plants .
Would be ashamed to show current pix as the winter really did a number on a lot of plants. A few aroids and some heliconia were fried everything else is recovering.
Had a breakdown of the heating system in Nov . Naturally we had the coldest winter EVER lol Will see what I can find when it was a functioning "seep wall" The tank contains nothing except loose cutting at the moment gary
 
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