Living Garden Wall
By: Marcus Igo, Galia Salazar, Nathan Emmons, Delaney Dorsch
Why are Pollinators Important?
Pollinators contribute to $577 billion in annual food production
90% of flowering plants
75% of food crops
Pollinator dependent food crops have Increased by 300%
Figure 1: Bar graph on how many agricultural crops depend on insect pollinators, specifically honeybees
Source: https://rs.resalliance.org/2007/02/28/a-surprising-decline-of-ecosystem-services-in-us/
Pollinator Decline
Drivers of pollinator decline:
Habitat Loss
Disease
Varroa Mites
Pesticides
Why are native plants important?
Pollinators prefer native plants
Extremely resilient
Thrive in their local environment
Contributes to biodiversity
Why Is Diversity Important?
When it comes the importance of pollinator diversity there are a variety of reasons.
Support biodiversity
Food Systems
Medicinal values
Fibers for clothing and material
Overall supports the health of an ecosystem
Strong resiliency
Project Overview
For our project, we had to design something that benefits pollinators in some way. We decided to design a living garden wall. A living garden wall is a vertical structure filled with vegetation, and they typically are built to clean air, regulate temperature, and for aesthetic purposes. We want to take a nontraditional route and choose a diverse amount of flowers, native plants, and pest resistant plants to attract a diverse quantity of pollinators. Our main goal of this project is to support a variety of pollinators and in turn support biodiversity. The wall could be a potential habitat for carpenter bees and other native pollinators. We also plan to upcycle used materials to construct the base of the pollinator garden which would further our mission with being as environmentally conscious as we can.
Brainstorming Process
As a group, we had three sections that we brainstormed: project ideas, features, and stakeholders. For each section we listed anything that came to mind. For project ideas we each ranked our top three choices and chose the idea with the most votes. For project features we combed through the brainstormed list as a group and chose the features we wanted to keep. For stakeholders we each chose 2-3 stakeholders to email questions regarding our top three ideas.
Meet the Stakeholders We Interviewed
Yumiko Jakobcic
Director of the Office of Sustainability Practices
Steve Snell
GVSU Arborist
Heather Emmons
General Manager of the Holiday Inn Grand Rapids Downtown
Matt Hiles
Entomologist
Through the variety of stakeholders we contacted we received feedback we hadn’t thought of before:
Dried bamboo for burrowing
Contacts for building
Potential hazards
Signage to educate
Our solution: A Living Garden Wall
With the rapid increase of urbanization, and the subsequent destruction of habitats, we as a group wanted to find a way to preserve biodiversity on campus as well as other urban areas. The pros of a living garden wall are:
Provides urban habitat for pollinators
Provides food for pollinators
Aesthetically pleasing - livens up brick and concrete buildings
Plants of Choice
Dotted mint
Monarda punctata
Attracts: Honeybees, bumblebees, miner bees and plasterer bees, as well as several butterflies including the swallowtail and the endangered Kramer blue butterfly
Common milkweed
Asclepias syriaca
Attracts: Butterflies, flies, beetles, bees, and wasps
Ohio spiderwort
Tradescantia ohiensis
Attracts: Bumblebees, honeybees, small carpenter bees and halictine bees
Golden Alexander
Zizia aurea
Attracts: Yellow-faced bees, Andrenid bees, sweat bees, and cuckoo bees.
Maximilian sunflower
Helianthus maximiliani
Attracts: Bees and butterflies
Goldenrod
Solidago
Attracts: Pollen-eating bees, beetles, butterflies, moths, flies, and wasps
Waste We Would Reuse
Cinderblocks
Easy to repurpose
Stacked or Implemented Into our build
Energy Intensive to produce
Plastics - Tarps, Agricultural Plastic Mulch etc.
Create plant potters
Divert plastics from oceans and landfills
Reused Buckets
To contain hanging plants
Bamboo
Dried bamboo can be bundled to create small pollinator hotels within the wall
Preferred Location to Install
Our preferred location to install a living garden wall would be along the unused space on Au Sable Hall's north face in the Arboretum.
Beautify the Arboretum
Close proximity to other native species
Invite more visitors
Signage to spread awareness and Informational "How-to" support pollinators
Visual Idea
To the left is a rough sketch of our living garden wall. The Maximillian Sunflower will grow along the cinder blocks because they grow at a taller height. The other flowers will grow in the cinder blocks or in the used buckets.
The dried bamboo will contain pollinators and taller stalks will hold up the buckets containing the Golden Alexander and Ohio Spiderwort.
Budget
To the right is an estimated cost for the living garden wall depicted above.
All of the pricings are for fully grown plants, not seed packets.
Not all of the websites for pricing the flowers are local, so more research is needed on local nursery costs.
The cinderblocks and reusable containers could be locally sourced from companies who would typically dispose of these as waste.
Educational Sign
To the left is an educational sign that could be placed next to a constructed living garden wall or in a heavily trafficked area in lieu of a constructed living garden wall.
This sign includes information on:
Why pollinators are important.
Why a living garden wall is a good solution.
A QR code that could be scanned if more information is desired on building a living garden wall.
Citations
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