Patrick Blanc .. Tonight at Drew School

Tonight in San Francisco,

Patrick Blanc, aka His Greenness, will be speaking at Drew School, where he designed a vertical garden of native plants. I'll be reporting back after hearing his presentation.

It's always exciting to have a chance to talk with Patrick about his latest projects spanning the globe.

I'll allow time to photograph the garden before the cocktail party, having been able to document its progress since the installation in Spring. Photo below shows how it looked in July of this year. Quite a few plants were blooming.

Read more: Green Roofs ... Vertical Gardens Revisited ....

Patrick Blanc: Vertical Gardens Update

Patrick Blanc Vertical Gardens: London and San Francisco

Detail: Heuchera Bloom at Drew School Living Wall - Photos © Alice Joyce

May 2011 Athenaeum Hotel, London

Compare images below from 2010 with those taken this Spring, and you'll see evidence of amazingly lush growth from one year to the next. Photos © Alice Joyce

Athenaeum Hotel's Vertical Garden completed in 2009 Photo © Alice Joyce

Spring Blooms - April 2011 Drew School Vertical Garden, San Francisco: Planted February 2011 -- I'll visit soon to update photos of the living wall's native plantings.

April 2011 ... Drew School Vertical Garden - San Francisco

Verdantly Vertical on Alice's Garden Travel Buzz

A Landmark Living Wall of Native Plants

Photo, Courtesy Patrick Blanc

The Bay Area is abuzz, and I'm exhilarated! The very thought of innovative botanist, Patrick Blanc creating a large-scale project in San Francisco - my back yard so to speak - has the entire horticultural community in a state of excitement! And the general public, too, especially the Lower Pacific Heights neighborhood. Imagine going out for a stroll and discovering a living wall taking shape before your eyes: It's the largest project Blanc has undertaken to-date in the United States.

Patrick Blanc at the February 10th press briefing.

(photo: Alice Joyce)

The placards flanking Patrick show: to the left in the photo - a selection of the native California species being planted; and on the right, Patrick's sketch of the design with the plant names indicated.

A detailed post about the project taking place at The Drew School is now posted on:

Alice's Garden Travel Buzz

You might like to read about Patrick's...

Verdantly Vertical Living Wall at London's Athenaeum Hotel

Vertical Gardens ... A Reprise

 PingMag photo: December 8, 2006

For French designer Jean-Paul Gaultier Patrick Blanc created a ‘Robe Végétale’.

PingMag.jp/ ceased publication on December 31, 2008.

Click on link for Vertical Gardens on:

Bay Area Tendrils Garden Travel

Vertical Gardens! A Patrick Blanc Green Wall for San Francisco

Caixa Forum, Madrid

photos by sallylondon

Architects, Herzog & de Meuron (San Francisco's de Young Museum, 

among their accomplishments) designed the addition on the adjacent building adjacent to the green wall: 

The upper stories exhibiting a tactile, richly colored cor-ten steel facade, in brilliant juxtaposition alongside the verdant surface of Patrick Blanc's expansive plantings.

Blanc broke new ground when he developed a highly successful technique for living walls,  the vertical gardens that now adorn buildings worldwide in indoor and outdoor settings.

Years ago, while visiting Paris I planned an early-morning visit to the Pershing Hall hotel, to see an early Blanc project installed on an interior courtyard wall.

The green wall Blanc created for the Caixa Forum is composed of 15,000 plants;  250 different species. In Blanc's words, "The Vertical Garden allows man to re-create a living system very similar to natural environments. It's a way to add nature to places where man once removed it. Thanks to botanical knowledge, it's possible to display natural-looking plant landscapes even though they are man-made. ...a Vertical Garden" can be "a valuable shelter for biodiversity."

Locally, Blanc has been chosen to design a green wall for the new Assembly Wing of San Francisco's Drew School, Blanc's largest project in the U.S. to date.

I'll be attending Blanc's lecture in San Francisco.

A botanist by profession, with eye-popping green hair, 

Blanc is sure to draw an enthusiastic crowd to the SPUR center in downtown San Francisco!