Indoor Living Walls - LiveWall Vertical Plant Wall System (2024)

When installing living walls indoors, water containment is critical:

• The wall planters are rear-draining, and would include a rubber hose drain assembly to contain runoff water.
• The indoor wall planters hold twice the soil volume as the standard outdoor wall planters to provide ample growing space for a wide selection of tropical plants.

In outdoor green wall applications, the designer has more options for planter size, drainage method and water delivery.

• Large wall planters (recommended in hot climates and for holding larger perennials and grasses in cold climates) are available with a bottom drain or a rear drain option (when runoff water must be contained, such as over doorways or windows). These are spaced 16″ on center vertically.
• Standard wall planters have a bottom drain option, and are most commonly used with annuals, edibles, succulents, and a number of cold-winter hardy perennials.
• Choice of spray nozzles (typically recommended for outdoors), or drip irrigation (when site is sensitive to runoff from the plants).

Indoor Green Walls

Outdoor Green Walls

• They both work very well.
• Almost effortless.
• Happy owners.
• Healthy plants; systems parallel nature.
• Same helpful design staff.
• Same high quality, architectural grade materials.
• Same great customer service.

Indoor Green Walls

Outdoor Green Walls

Learn More About These Benefits

Light intensity is a measure of light energy hitting the plant surface and is also very important to plant health. For traditional interior lighting applications, light intensity is discussed in terms of foot-candles of light energy. While foot-candles is not the preferred measure of light intensity by horticultural scientists (who prefer a measurement in terms of “photo active radiation”), we have found that foot-candles will suffice with a proven light source, such as LiveWall’s Norb® Botanic. And, for most tropical foliage plantings 200-400 foot-candles of light energy hitting the foliage, is sufficient.

LiveWall, LLC has developed a plant selection and pairing guide for indoor plants based upon their lighting and water needs, and growth habit.ThisLiveWall design guide should be consulted for the correct light intensity for the type of plants that one intends to use.We have categorized the plants into lighting needs as follows:

Indoor location with direct light from a south or west exposure where the plants receive 2 or more hours of direct sun, but preferably not during the hottest part of the day.

Artificial Bright Light is approximately equal to a four tube florescent fixture in close proximity to the planting, in the range of 400 to 600+ foot candles, for 12 to 15 hours per day.

Indoor location with direct light for a couple of hours in the morning or afternoon (from east or west facing windows), or from a south facing window provided the location is several feet interior of south facing windows.

Artificial Medium Light is approximately equal to a two tube florescent fixture, 2 or 3 feet from the foliage, in the range of 100 to 400 foot candles for 12 to 15 hours per day.

Low Lightpertains to an indoor location that is not close to windows or supplemental lighting—typically a north or east exposure.

Artificial Low Light is enough to read a newspaper, in the range of 25 to 100 foot candles for 12 to 15 hours per day.

Light fixtures should beadjustable for direction and are typically located in front of the living wall and attached to or suspended from the ceiling. Occasionally, they are located at the bottom or sides of the LiveWall structure, to create proximity to the plants, and thereby provide sufficient light intensity across the entire wall surface. Often times, track lighting is used as it is contemporary, comes with many fixture options, and is relatively inexpensive.

In respect to the light source (bulb), the key considerations are proper light spectrum and light intensity. Plants tend to respond to blue and red wavelengths and in a proportion not available from incandescent or typical office-type LED lights. There are, of course, LED grow lights composed of red and blue diodes—but they tend to cast a purple light which looks odd, unnatural, and unattractive.

For this reason, LiveWall LLC developed theNorb^® (Nutri-Orb) Botanic, a specialized White-Light LED that provides the right spectrum for growing plants. With Norb^®bulbs, the plants can be healthy and“look right under white.”

Norb Botanic LED

While each light source may have a different beam angle and intensity, it is important to keep in mind:

1. The distance that the planters sit from the wall.
2. The distance that the plants may extend from the planters. This distancewill be greater with large-leaved, billowy plants.

As a rule of thumb, when using Norb^® Botanic to light your indoor LiveWall, we recommend setting the track lighting fixture back 7′ from the building wall. This should allow ample room for the vegetation and support even light distribution.

This living wall installation is lit by 12 Norb® bulbs (6 with 30 degree beam angle and 6 with 15 degree beam angle) directed at the 8’ x 8’ and 11’ x 11’ walls.

These bulbs are angled from track lighting attached to the 12 foot ceiling. This configuration provides plenty of light.

High Pressure Sodiumlights are yellow in appearance. Their spectrum supports flowering but lacks the spectrum needed to support indoor foliage plants.

They may support living wall plants only when combined with a Metal Halide light.

LED lights that are commonly used in office or exterior lighting—typically with color temperatures of 3000K-4500K— are not suitable for plant growth.

Specify Norb Botanic when LED lighting is preferred.

Plants need a dark period to rest and prevent metabolic fatigue. Therefore, grow lights should only be run 12-15 hours maximum per day—typically from 7 AM to 8 or 9 PM (to mimic light conditions in tropical regions). The rest of the time, they should be in darkness, or near darkness.

If security lighting is required in the area of the LiveWall, it should be of very low intensity and not directed toward the plants.

Do not run Norb® bulbs (or any bulb labeled as supporting plant growth) on the green wall for more than 15 hours per day.

The LiveWall system does an excellent job of growing a broad array of greens, lettuce and herbs. When those plants are grown indoors, the plants must receive enough light of the correct spectrum.

Fortunately, we have a solution for that! We have tested and selected a lighting product with the best overall plant growth performance and value. We developed an ingenious bracket for mounting these lights and allowing for simple plant replacement or system inspection.

Contact your LiveWall representative to learn more; call us at 877-554-4065.