How to use plants to turn your home into a green building

Planting climbers like ivy can cover ugly walls, insulate your home and support local wildlife – and keeping it under control is easier than you would think, writes Clare Wilson

Environment

23 September 2020

By Clare Wilson

What you need

An ivy plant

A wall

A pot (optional, but recommended)

THE latest thing in architecture is green buildings – covering walls and roofs with a carpet of plants to insulate, soak up rain and provide a home for wildlife. Many such buildings need complex systems for holding and irrigating the soil, but there is a much easier approach: growing some ivy.

Ivy is a group of about a dozen species of evergreen climbing plants in the genus Hedera that are happy in shade or full sun and with most kinds of soil. They don’t …