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Now Spring is here Europe’s tallest green wall is bursting into life. It covers internal walls in the courtyard of the Bennett’s Associates designed Mint Hotel near the Tower of London which opened earlier this year.

The wall extends from the glass roof of the covered courtyard all the way up to the 11^th floor and wraps around the outside of the building and links up with the hotel’s green roof. It provides an attractive backdrop for guests in the reception area under the glass roof and from the bedrooms facing into the courtyard.

Forty different species of plant has been used and are planted into real soil. According to green wall specialist, Frosts Landscape Construction real soil is better for the plants meaning it will last longer than walls using hydroponic planting systems.

A total of 180,000 evergreen plants make up the wall. Different species have been selected depending on the orientation, for example thrifts and red Campion has been used for the south facing element of the scheme while shade loving plants including ferns have been used on the north side.

The wall is made up of 4,100 planting modules which each contain 45 planted cells which are 70mm deep. The plants were established before the modules were fixed to the building. Each module is fixed to a steel frame using a plastic mounting strip; the frame is fixed to the rendered wall of the hotel.

An automatic irrigation system is built into the wall and supplies a combination of water and liquid fertiliser to keep the plants healthy. If anything goes wrong with the irrigation system a text message is automatically sent to Frosts so they can take corrective action before any damage is done.