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We keep lots of different staghorn ferns (Platycerium bifurcatum) in stock because we love them so much. They grow in nature on tree trunks and branches and take very well to being mounted on other vertical materials. They make vertical gardening easy and stylish. We try to keep lots in stock because they love growing outside in mild Bay Area gardens and make quite an interior statement.

ABOVE: Our friends Matti & Megan of Far Out Flora used to collect driftwood on Ocean Beach to create these one-of-a-kind plaques.

ABOVE: One of our generous customers brought us a spectacular specimen as a gift! Our staff designer Daniel Nolan is maneuvering it here. Our customer had been growing it in her greenhouse but it got too big. We’ve got designs on it as a new element in our shaded display areas.

Photo by Caitlin Atkinson

Staff designer Daniel Nolan has created an amazing vertical garden of staghorns and other epiphytic ferns and orchids at his home. It’s like a vegan trophy collection!

You’d be amazed how easy it is to care for this collection: just a weekly spray with the hose, occasional grooming, and the rare application of fertilizer (use a banana!), and you’re golden.

Come see the many incarnations of this beautiful plant here at the nursery.

Landscape architect Josh Rosen, also known as Airplantman, has worked with tillandsia air plants in all sorts of beautiful ways. His handmade AirplantFrames are a refreshing and minimalist way to exhibit tillandsias anywhere, even outdoors, and we’re thrilled to be able to offer them here in the store and in the Web Shop.

ABOVE: Under eaves in a frost-free California garden, these framed tillandsia gardens become a gallery of adorable exotica. For happiest growing, use outdoor-tolerant tillandsias and protect the frame gardens from excessive rain and cold.

ABOVE: This Hollywood office courtyard features a custom stainless-steel AirplantFrame aligned above a water feature. Amidst the maximal tree aloes, Aloe barberae, this piece adds a fascinating and detailed focal point. Photography by Airplantman. Landscape designed by Mark Tessier Landscape Architecture.

ABOVE: When solar panels were added to the roof of this spectacular Ray Kappe-designed house in Southern California, the homeowners hoped to maintain their view while screening the new addition and creating a design that celebrated their passion for tillandsia air plants. Airplantman Designs transformed the rooftop space with a living backdrop of Spanish moss, Tillandsia usenoides. Photography by Airplantman.

ABOVE: The refinement of AirplantFrames complements modern architectural elements and makes the natural, idiosyncratic forms of the air plants all the more conspicuous.

The greatest advance that AirplantFrames bring to gardening with tillandsias is transparency. Pre-strung with wire to create a matrix, they allow air and light to pass around the air plants.

Place one in front of a window to start a visual dialogue between indoors and the outside. Doing so has schooled us in the play of light and color through these remarkable little epiphytes.

You can create a garden just like this, with a little patience and hard work. Gardens like these can be created with the DIY Panel that can be purchased here at the store, or in our Web Shop.

ABOVE: This is the Vertical Succulent Garden that hangs here in our store.

We’ve built  these  beautiful garden towers here at the store, using the most “natural” of all of the vertical gardening techniques. The plants on the towers are thriving and inspire a lot of curiosity among our customers.

It sure is the era of vertical gardens! Patrick Blanc wows the world with his masterpieces of green architecture. And we’ve delighted this past few years in helping our customers to create vertical gardens using Woolly Pockets, succulents, and tillandsia-adorned Thigmotropes. Let’s admit, though, that the effect of clothing structures in greenery has been popular at least since the first ivy was planted at Harvard. And plants have been scaling surfaces long before any gardener was here to cultivate or appreciate them.

All over the planet and in all kinds of climates there are plants that have evolved the aptitude for growing on vertical surfaces. The ones that root themselves on other plants (on trees and shrubs and often on rocks just as well) are called epiphytes. Best known of these naturally vertical-growing epiphytes are the many tropical orchids  that we see domesticated at the market in pots of bark but in the tropics attach their roots to the bark of living trees. Another big group is bromeliads, those pineapple relatives that hold moisture in their leaves, and their subset, tillandsias, the fuzzy air plants and Spanish moss. Plenty of ferns happily grow from even the smallest cracks on a rock face. There are even cactus that grow up on trunks and branches and twigs.

Over time, the folks here at the store have learned and created techniques for giving these naturally vertically growing plants a boost. Once you get the plants started, their natural tendency to cling takes over, and a “natural” vertical garden begins to grow.

Here’s the fun part: We can help you recreate the intricate beauty of natural vertical gardens!  We stock many of the supplies you’ll need to help get the plants going on a vertical surface, and dozens of plants that will happily grow on a wall. And we’re happy to share our know-how – how to select, attach, and arrange these plants, and how to water, prune, and fertilize them. Creating a “natural” vertical garden can be a great solution in a small space that needs to be beautified. You can build your vertical garden on any wall surface, or consider using a tree trunk as a host.

Come visit us to learn more. If you’ve got a spot in mind for one of these gardens, bring along some photos and measurements of the site, and spend a couple of days observing how many hours of sun the spot the gets. We’d be so glad to help you get started!

Our vertical succulent gardens bring visitors to the nursery a sense of wonder, and many people are inspired to build and grow their own at home.

We offer for sale here in the store and in our Web Shop the same type of panel we use to create our own vertical succulent gardens. It’s a gratifying project to do it yourself, but you might want instructions, which we offer below.

Hang the panels outdoors

While some succulents are capable of growing indoors, they do much better when they enjoy the sun and air circulation of the outdoors. The panels are built with slotted cells that allow the water to trickle from cell to cell and drain out the bottom, making them unsuitable for placing against sheetrock or other indoor wall surfaces. Drainage out the bottom poses a problem for indoor flooring as well.

How they are made

The DIY Vertical Panels are made of food-safe HDPE, which is the same plastic used to make milk jugs. The plastic is flexible yet firm. Each panel will weigh approximately 50-70 pounds when planted. The walls of the planting compartments are slanted to keep soil from falling out. Each compartment has slots that allow water to drain through from one cell to the next. See the image below.

Planting the panels

The panels can be planted in two ways: plug-in planting and homegrown.

1) Plug-in planting

Each compartment will hold two succulents from 2-inch containers. One panel takes 90 plants to fill, and gives you speedy (but not instant) gratification. Allow the succulents to grow into the panel by maintaining it on a flat surface for a month (spring through fall) or longer (winter). In winter, take care to protect the garden panel from periods of freezing temperatures. Anytime the panel is being cultivated horizontally, protect from rain and hail.

After a month or so, you can mount the panel in its permanent, vertical position.

2) Homegrown

For a more economical and do-it-yourself approach, the panels can be filled with loose potting soil while they are lying flat. You can insert cuttings of succulents from your own collection in a pattern of your choosing. Be sure to keep the panels flat (and out of the rain!) for three to five months, in order to allow them to root in. You don’t want all your hard work to pour out when you hang it up! Many succulents grow more actively in the warmer part of the year.

If you can pick them up here at our nursery, we can offer pre-planted, established vertical succulent panels by special order only. Unfortunately, we do not offer this product in our Web Shop, cannot accommodate requests for custom designs, and we cannot ship. Orders for pre-planted panels require a wait of between one and three weeks if they are available; availability is limited to pre-planted panels on hand at our growers.

Hanging them up

The panels measure 20” x 20” and extend 2 ½” from the wall. They come with a metal mounting bracket that screws into the wall horizontally. The panel can be hung from this bracket and is easily removable for watering and maintenance. Alternately, each panel has a pair of slots allowing you to insert screws through the panel and directly onto the backing. This can be useful for a more permanent mounting. The panels can weigh anywhere from 50 to 70 pounds when fully planted and watered. It is important to mount the panels to structural beams capable of holding the considerable weight of water-saturated soil and plants.

Watering and maintaining the panels

The panels can be watered by hand or by a drip system. The top of each tray has a little channel that perfectly fits a 1/4″ drip irrigation line. The slotted cells allow the water to flow from cell to cell and drain out the bottom. At Flora Grubb Gardens we water by hand since we can so easily reach them. We use a low-pressure spray and slowly wet the garden for a few minutes. Then we wait five minutes and repeat. We’ll do it one more time if it’s been particularly warm for a couple of weeks. We don’t water it at all if there’s been rain within the previous week.

How to create an installation with the panels

Flora Grubb Gardens does not create custom installations using the DIY Vertical Panel. Our installation here at the nursery was done by a contractor who started with a panel of MDO (marine plywood) as backing. He then mounted it with French cleats (included with each vertical panel) – a common construction method to “float” the garden off the wall with an air space behind it for ventilation. The frame on our own vertical garden was created by mounting the wood frame (redwood, driftwood, etc.) directly to the back panel of plywood after the panels were mounted. Use your imagination!

Customizing & modifying

The panel can be cut with a proper saw blade, but should be cut before planting along the lines of the little compartments to make sure all the soil will stay contained. Panels can be configured to create displays of any size, though it is important to consider the feasibility of care and maintenance for such a non-traditional garden.

Patrick Blanc dropped by our store! Patrick  might be the closest thing the gardening world has to an international superstar. His vertical gardens have inspired the masses and created an eager parade of imitators (such as me). Patrick was in town working on his first US project with Roma Design Group for the Drew School.

Patrick was leaning towards California natives for the garden. In the hands of a lesser plantsman, this might have been a disaster. I had heard that Patrick was a really knowledgeable horticulturalist, and I can confirm this firsthand. In fact, I am not sure if I have ever had anyone visit my store and be able to identify so much of what they saw. His horticultural knowledge was mind-boggling.  Patrick was a delight, and now his amazing project for the Drew School is completed! Learn More Here.

Here are some pictures of the vertical garden that we did with Kevin for Sunset’s Celebration Weekend.

Here is a vinewood framed vertical succulent garden installation by my sweetie, Kevin Smith. Pretty, huh?