A VIEW BEYOND TRADITIONAL GROWING MEDIA USES

While cities grow in inhabitant number and increase their building ratios, surfaces are even more scarcely available for landscaping purposes. Thus, vegetation uses the vertical dimension to increase landscaped surface, growing plants in façades, roofs, urban farms or balconies. This is fostered by city planners as sustainability of the urban environment is taken into consideration, to which plants can certainly contribute by adding energy efficiency and insulation to buildings while improving air quality and increasing biodiversity, among other benefits.
Horticultural crops, both edible and ornamental, have been traditionally considered to be the main users of growing media. For this reason, growing media developments have been mostly undertaken by horticultural sciences that deal mainly with production techniques. Beyond traditional uses, new areas of application of growing media are being developed as new applications of the landscape industry are being encouraged. It is necessary, though, to develop new techniques and use new materials as growing media for these applications; in this review some developments for green roofs, vertical gardens and hanging gardens are discussed.