How to Decorate an Empty Wall with Plants

Plant walls, also known as green walls, living walls, or eco-walls, can be created indoors or outdoors and can be freestanding or attached to walls, fences, or other structures. Where do you begin when it comes to decorating an empty wall with plants?

Here’s how you can decorate your empty wall with plants:

1. Choose the location of your plant wall.
2. Decide how your indoor plant wall will allow for air circulation.
3. Decide whether your plant wall will be attached or freestanding.
4. Select the plants for your plant wall.
5. Arrange the plants on your plant wall.
6. Create a schedule for caring for your plant wall.
7. Enjoy the beauty and benefits of your new living wall.

Plant walls are versatile and more than just decorative; they can be your vertical vegetable/herb garden, an outdoor privacy screen, an indoor air purifier, or a window treatment. They can also be transformable artwork, seasonal decor, or room partitions. Keep reading to learn more about decorating your walls with plants.

1. Choose the location of your plant wall

Your first step is to decide which wall you want to decorate with plants. I use the term “wall” loosely because the wall you choose could be an ugly indoor wall or an unsightly fence outdoors.

Your wall could also be the partial wall around your apartment balcony or a space inside your room where you want a wall. Maybe you want to hide the corner of your living room that you use as an office from your guests or create a private dining nook for two in your garden.

Keep in mind that the location you choose may impact your plant selection and the schedule you need to follow for care.

For example, if you choose an indoor wall with little direct sunlight, you may need to add LED grow lights to your living wall design. Alternatively, you may need to limit your plant selection to those that don’t require as much sunlight. If you choose a drafty area, you’ll need to avoid plants that don’t tolerate sudden or frequent temperature changes.

2. Decide how your indoor plant wall will allow for air circulation

Plants act as natural air purifiers, and indoor plant walls can also function as air purifiers. Urban planners and architects add plant walls to the exterior of buildings for this reason, as well as to cool down temperatures in the city. Green eco-walls circulate the air in your home either passively or actively.

Passive plant walls

Passive green walls rely on the natural air flow of your home to circulate the air around your plants. This makes them cost-effective and easy to install. If you want your plants to play a more active role in filtering the air in your home, you should consider an active green wall system.

Active plant walls

Active eco-walls involve a system that draws the air of your home through the wall to involve the plants more actively in filtering the air in your home. This active eco-wall system ensures that more air reaches your plants in your home. Installing an active eco-wall system is slightly more complicated than installing a passive wall system, but beyond that, the two systems are similar.

3. Decide whether your plant wall will be attached or freestanding

What’s the difference between the two?

Attached plant walls

Attached plant walls come in two variations – modular panel systems and shelf systems.

In modular panel systems, the plants are grown in the panels, tiles, cassettes, or boxes in a nursery. Then, the individual panels are mounted vertically on a support structure.

Shelf or tray systems consist of trays stacked on top of a support plate. The plants are lightly tilted forward on the trays or shelves. They remain in their own pots.

The two-part ShopLaLa Wall Planter is an Amazon Choice variation of a shelf system. It’s made of high-quality dark brown wooden slats instead of shelf boards. You hang pots (not included) on the slats. The wood, either imported from New Zealand or Finland, undergoes high-temperature carbonization treatment, making it suitable for both indoor and outdoor use. A ShopLaLa bundle holder is available with four planters and 20 4-inch (10.16 cm) white metal pots with a handle-like hanger.

Panel systems

Panel systems can be installed indoors or outdoors. The nursery will help you select plants suitable for your environment for an outdoor display.

The tiles can accommodate a variety of growing media, so you can mix and match a wide range of plants. Panel systems can also include their own recirculating irrigation system, so you only need to add water when the supply is low. They can also be connected to your household water system and replenished automatically.

Shelf systems

Shelf systems can also be installed indoors or outdoors. As you may have guessed, they give you much more freedom in swapping and arranging your plants.

Since the plants are in their own individual pots, you can easily mix foliage and flowering plants to create designs. Consider creating geometric patterns, monograms, messages, or artworks. Change your creation seasonally or whenever you want to change your decor.

However, if you want to create artwork, follow a tip from renowned needlework designer Erica Wilson. Consider the simplified drawings you see in children’s coloring books. You may be able to see the picture you wanted to create in your plant arrangement, but trying to create too many details can confuse other viewers.

Variations in shelf systems

While I described a large shelf system above, you may prefer a shelf system that offers a more airy, open look:

• Use shelves. You can attach a few shelves using brackets or a shelf system directly to the wall of your room. Offset the shelves with wall art and offset shelves with books or knick-knacks.
• Use macrame plant hangers. Another option is to forgo the shelves and hang your potted plants in macrame plant hangers for a boho look. If you have a narrow wall space between doors or windows, you can use it to hang multiple plants vertically.
• Create groupings. You can also create a grouping by varying the length of the macrame hangers. Try a window treatment with plant hangers, all carrying one length, or with shorter ones in the middle arching to longer ones on each side of the window.

Freestanding plant walls

Freestanding plant walls can be placed against a wall or used as room dividers, and the entire wall can be moved into different areas. Use transparent shelves or a planter box with wheels containing a range of plants.

Transparent shelves offer you the same possibilities as a hanging wall system, but your artworks can become room dividers when viewed from both sides. Plant taller plants in the center and shorter foliage and flowering plants on each side for a space-dividing planter box with views from all angles.

Create an outdoor privacy or windscreen on an apartment balcony or terrace with a planter box freestanding plant wall. Grow taller plants like grasses or small trees in the back and shorter foliage and flowering plants in the front to create privacy. You can even use planter boxes planted with small trees indoors as a centerpiece. These will give a dining room/breakfast nook the feel of an outdoor picnic spot or a living room/play area the feel of an outdoor park.

4. Select the plants for your plant wall

I have already noted some points to consider when selecting plants for your plant wall. For green walls, both indoors and outdoors, choose hardy plants. Both indoor and outdoor wall plants may need to tolerate fluctuations in soil moisture, even if only for short periods.

Indoor plant walls should also tolerate rapid and frequent temperature changes in drafty areas of your home. However, you can use tropical plants indoors.

When selecting plants for an outdoor plant wall, purchase them at a nursery in a climate zone north of your area. Plants from northern climate zones are accustomed to the weather and temperature range in that area, so they are more likely to withstand unusually cool weather for your area.

Selecting fruits, vegetables, and herbs for your plant wall

If you enjoy having a garden but live in an apartment or townhouse with limited space, plant herbs, fruits, and vegetables. This will make use of the vertical space you have on a balcony, terrace, or indoor wall.

If your plant wall is both decorative and intended for gardening, keep in mind that harvesting from your plant wall will leave gaps. If you use a shelf system, you can simply add a new pot, but you would need to replace tiles in a tile system.

Unless you are using a planter for your plant wall, you should have shorter, low-space plants. As mentioned above, a shelf system or planter works best. If you are using a planter box, you can even build a trellis or purchase trellises for a backdrop of climbing vines, such as:

• Peas
• Runner beans
• Lima beans
• Grapes

5. Arrange the plants on your plant wall

With a tile system, you can mix a variety of plants with different growth requirements on the same tile. Each plant on a tile is grown with its own source of growing media. With a tile system, you may be able to create a more detailed picture or add more textures, but when you want to change your picture, you’ll need to change all the tiles or create an entirely new plant wall.

With a shelf system, you can change your display by simply swapping out potted plants, while hanging shelf systems, freestanding shelf systems, or planters against the wall add depth. Additionally, freestanding systems and planters as room dividers provide three-dimensional views.

Let yourself be inspired by mosaics and geometric designs from cultures around the world, nature, holidays, special occasions, and your imagination.

6. Create a schedule for caring for your plant wall

Plants in a shelf system without a built-in irrigation system need to be watered and fertilized just like the plants in a planter and other potted plants. Allow the top inch of soil to dry between each watering and follow the care instructions for each plant when fertilizing.

Fruits and flowering plants need more water and fertilizer when they are blooming and producing and less when they are dormant. Refer to the resting schedule for exotic plants from other hemispheres of the Earth.

Your living wall may have a built-in irrigation system, usually a drip system that pumps water from a tank and recirculates it repeatedly. You only need to fertilize the plants and refill the reservoir once it dries up.

Other living walls connect to your house’s water supply. For example, hydroponic systems provide both nutrients and water. You only need to refill the hydroponic solution. Nevertheless, you’ll need to remove damaged or dying leaves to keep your plants healthy.

7. Enjoy the beauty and benefits of your new plant wall

Aside from adding a beautiful display to your indoor and outdoor living areas and purifying your indoor air, living walls offer additional benefits. Environmental psychologists who study how people respond to nature have found that health, morale, and productivity increase when elements of nature are integrated into homes and workspaces. Additionally:

• Indoor plants have a positive impact on guests and potential home buyers.
• Green walls help to muffle sounds from outside and between rooms.
• They can help reduce energy costs by providing shade, complementing wall insulation, and diverting the sunlight away from exterior walls.
• The three benefits of plant walls mentioned above help keep the home warm in winter and cooler in summer.
• Green walls can earn LEED points and increase property value.

Final Thoughts

Whether you choose a tile system, shelf system, panel system, or freestanding system, with plant walls, you can create your own living artwork in your home.

Plant walls not only provide beauty and a psychological boost but also clean the air in your home, warm it in winter and cool it in summer, and lower your energy costs. How many home accessories can do all of that?