Patrick Blanc Lecture: The New Challenges for the Vertical Garden

Overview

If your herbs ain't sprouting, your vines ain't clinging and your flowers ain't blooming, Patrick Blanc is the man you want to see. If ever there was an expert on getting plants to grow in urban settings, it's him. As the patent holder on the matting necessary to creating vertical gardens, he's achieved the seemingly impossible and caused greenery to defy gravity in no fewer than 25 cities around the world — including San Francisco, Berlin, Tokyo and New York. We Sydneysiders know him best, of course, for the 1,120 square metres of vertical garden he's cultivated at the $2 billion One Central Park development. It's Blanc's tallest work so far.

On Tuesday, July 8, he'll be sharing some of what he's learnt over a lifetime of botanical study via a free public lecture at UTS. The topic up for discussion is 'new challenges for the vertical garden', to be explored through references to some of Blanc's major Australian projects, including One Central Park, Hobart's New and Old Art Museum, Camperdown's Trio residential development and the Qantas lounges in Sydney and Melbourne.