Gardening facades of houses

A beautiful house with climbing plants on the walls and a pretty garden always attracts enthusiastic glances of passersby. This method of refining buildings is gaining increasing popularity for two reasons. First, the plants on the facades are a wonderful and inexpensive way to decorate a house and give it a cozy lived-in look, besides helping to disguise weaknesses if necessary. And secondly, it is a method of protecting a home from bad weather that has been proven over the years. In the summer heat, the vegetation creates shade and gives such necessary coolness, and in winter it helps to keep warm.

The aesthetic aspect of today is added to the aesthetic side of the issue. Gardening of the facades of houses is carried out purposefully to improve the microclimate of the city and protect the environment, in other words, to improve the quality of human life.

The positive effect is expressed in the following:

1. The amount of dust and carbon monoxide from cars decreases.
2. The air becomes humidified and saturated with oxygen.
3. Plants are a natural habitat for beneficial insects.
4. The architecture of the building is transformed.
5. Improves human health.

Selection of plants for landscaping

Climbing, climbing and creeping plants are usually suitable for facades. The first do not need a lot of soil. The root system is able to settle down in poor soil, and the antennae cling to small protrusions and irregularities on the walls, thanks to which the plant continues to develop and envelop the building. These plants include grapes and ivy.

Curly and creeping plants need special adaptations for which they will cling and grow. Therefore, before you begin to decorate a house, you first need to decide on the scale of landscaping: whether it is worth planting a whole facade or an individual part of it in order to focus on any architectural feature of the building.

In the first case, it is impossible to do without climbing representatives, because, as they expand, they cover the wall from the beginning to the end with a solid green carpet. Creepers are more suitable for partial landscaping, since they are easier to concentrate on a specific section of the wall.

Gardening a private house is easy to create, the main thing is to choose the right crops and prepare the ground. Nutritious soil will promote good growth and abundant flowering of plants. It is recommended to saturate the land at the landing sites with organic fertilizers.

For single-storied buildings, annual and perennial low plants with shoots of 2–5 m should be chosen. These include: cucumber, garden or Turkish beans, sweet peas, clematis, capricoleum, calistegy, and many others. Higher crops such as perennial hops, ivy and wild grapes are suitable for 1.5–2 storey houses.

When planting seeds or shoots must comply with the rules. So, to achieve the best result when planting annuals, the distance between them should be from 10 to 35 cm, depending on the selected variety. For example, it is recommended to plant beans after 20 cm, bindweed after 15 cm, and hops after 35 cm. Perennial plants require more space as they grow every year. The ideal gap between them is the distance of 75 cm.

Note that the choice of varieties depends on the personal preferences of the owners of the house, as well as on the vegetation on the plot, since it is important to create a harmonious composition of plants that merge into one. 

Vertical gardening

Improvement of the facades is impossible without taking into account the architectural features and appearance of the house. Vertical gardening should not hide the beauty of the building, but only complement and decorate its exterior. Exceptions are cases when, according to the author's idea, plants on the walls are the main decorative element of the facade.

In this regard, vertical gardening is divided into three types:

• Solid.
• Partial with the help of groups of plants.
• Partial with single plants.

The first option is suitable for blank walls that do not have decorative elements. It is important to consider the location of plants near the windows in order to darken the internal rooms. The most common plants for continuous landscaping are self-priming vines.

Gardening in groups or individual specimens is used for buildings of simple forms with neat openings, loggias and small balconies. It is important to remember that most plants need support, so they will need to construct wire or wooden frames. The supports are mounted along the wall with dowels. The size of the whole structure depends on the weight of future plants.

Whichever of the three possible options for vertical gardening you choose, it is important to take into account the direction of the light on which the wall is facing.

For the north side, evergreens are great - jasmine, cotoneaster and chubushnik. They not only decorate the facade, but also save thermal energy, as they are able to hold warm air coming from the walls.

For the south side, it is better to use plants that shed their leaves for the winter - lemongrass, clematis, actinidia and some others. In the summer, they create a dense shade, protecting them from overheating, and in the cold season they provide unhindered access to the sun’s rays to the wall. This creates an optimal microclimate in the house.

Plants that are resistant to bad weather are planted on the western side, since it is believed that it is the rains and cold winds that most often come from the west. Alternatively, you can place camellia, magnolia and wisteria on the facade.

On the eastern side, which meets the dawn, the Japanese quince, hydrangea, and kerria are perfectly acclimatized.

You can solve the problem of landscaping facades without planting creeping plants and arranging frames on the walls. Kadochnye plants and pot gardens look very nice on the open balconies and window sills, create an atmosphere of comfort and convenience. Pots of flowers can be placed around the perimeter of the facade, at the main entrance, on the stairs, under the windows, along the edges of the walkway to the house. Properly arranging the mobile elements of landscaping, you can achieve an amazingly beautiful effect that is not in the least inferior to that provided by luxurious vines. This design of the facade, although it requires some effort, but has a significant advantage - the ability to update the collection of plants and each year to create a new exterior style, and quickly ennobling the territory.

Video

We invite you to admire the landscaped facade houses: