Trailing and High Level Planting

trailing and high level plants

indoor

Another very dull title for a really interesting area of work!

Whether it started in San Francisco or Shoreditch is a moot point, but it’s a really neat way of softening overly-hard contemporary interiors without them looking saccharine. The basic principle is that it has to look organic and random, as if you just left things to grow. And, of course, that they actually did…

That’s why it really lends itself to our plants - unless you’re blessed to live in a sub-tropical climate, no live plants are going to last. Just long enough for the Instagram picture, normally! Ferns in particular tend to peg out in no time. OK, it can still look funky when it’s dead, but only if you’re going for a Tim Burton vibe.

There aren’t really any rules, you can hang it, put it in troughs, lace it across a ceiling, weave it into mesh - and we have a tremendous range of things that will work. Also important is that the sight lines are are good from further away as well as up close. Lighting also plays an important part, either narrow beam spots from way up high, or warm white LED nets just above the greenery.

Have a scan through the pictures to pick up ideas, but in reality every project is individual, and, as always, accurate plans/elevations and measurements are a good starting point.

trailing and high level plants

indoor

879 Fake Landscapes high level dangly modern planting

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This is a perfect example of how it should be done, and that’s not us showing off -because we didn’t do the final bit! Covid restrictions meant we couldn’t get to site to install, so we pre-built all the sections in the workshop and shipped them to the hotel in Bath. The talented Maria at Park Bench design and her team actually fitted everything, and the end result looks great. Teamwork! 879

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Back to Shoreditch, this is a neat idea using a fairly sizeable 2.4 metre planter to bridge the gap between a high ceiling and the main reception area – large enough to allow us the chance to throw every variety and size of fern we had at it! 880

881 Fake Landscapes MAM Notting Hill Hanging Planting

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Way out west in the wilds of Notting Hill, this uses our standard window boxes with a variety of succulents of the sort you see trailing down stone walls in the Mediterranean. It’s high enough up to be out of your hair and makes an otherwise dull skylight a feature. 881

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The same idea being used to separate areas in the restaurant at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry. The buckets are a nice idea, they cost next to nothing and work really well because the heights can easily be adjusted. Design by the ever-stylish SHH, also thanks to them for the picture - by the time we finished the job it was too dark to see! 882

883 fake landscapes high level ivy on clients framework

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A simple solution, just a nice sprawling jumble of our UV green ivy - across what looks like the sort of framework that used to hold those naff lucite panels in the restaurants’ previous incarnation. Actually, it’s probably hand-built from gender-neutral steel by bearded chaps, this being W11 and all… 883

884 fake landscapes chiltern firehouse high level

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This is what we did for the opening of the Chiltern Firehouse in Marylebone with some funky French designer dudes. We’ve not been back to try the food as they’ve been booked solid for years. Must be the plants… 884

885-Fake-landscapes-low-level-carlton-tower

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You’d be forgiven in thinking this was some funky converted power station, but it’s really the approach to the swimming pool area at the Jumeirah Carlton Tower hotel in Knightsbridge. Nice people, kudos to them for trusting us and giving us a free hand! 885

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Very much a one off, a copper covered wall with custom planters (can you imagine the polishing?!) Trailing stuff didn’t work, so we made it look as if the plants were doing really well and were just about to spill out - but hadn’t quite. 886

887 fake landscapes curtain hotel mixed ivies

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Back to Shoreditch, this is the Curtain Hotel (which is now called the Mondrian from a quick Google). Not sure if the planting is still there, but there was so little light not much else would work. Maybe the secret of being beautiful people is to stay in the shadows so you can’t make out the fine detail? 887

888 fake landscapes dense high level ivy and wild plants Ascot royal enclosure

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Odd how this sort of planting works in all sorts of different places – this is the Royal Enclosure at Ascot and meant to look like hedgerows (In Surrey? Ed.) Design by SHH, and this time there’s a Fake Landscapes elf for scale as well. 888

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Another high end project using wild planting, this is the appropriately named Wilde restaurant in the Westbury, Dublin. The ivies are on twisted wood so they flow round the windows rather than follow the columns rigidly. The elves enjoyed the Guinness, too! 889

890 fake landscapes natural look ivy on clients framework AP

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And again (which will make no sense unless you’ve come here from the previous picture!), this is another ‘high spec’ luxury interior in a West End watch showroom having its lines softened by our ivy. Design (and nice lighting) by March and White, fiddly ivy threading by us. 890

891 Fake Landscapes Brown Thomas Green and Bean Cafe

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Another project in Dublin, this time at Brown Thomas, using a similar mixed mass of ferns – like the ones floating in the air a little earlier in the sequence. This wasn’t a large enough project to justify flying a team out, so it was built in our workshops as a ‘drop-in’ and sent over by carrier. 891

892 fake landscapes succulents in clients nice double bowl

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Not really very wild or trailing, but we have great succulents, and we use a lot of them dotted among all the greenery and also in our indoor livings walls. We’re currently making a green wall that’s entirely succulents for a boat project, so if or when that’s completed, we’ll post it here. 892

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More of the ‘hang ‘em high’ style, this time as a play-around to see how orchids can be used without looking silly or growing out at an implausible 90 degrees to reality. Work in progress, and we need to improve the knot-tying! 893

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More copper, this time with a lot of mad straggling grey-frosted plants at the Ivy, in a sort of ‘Kings Road meets Louisiana swamp’ lopsided vibe with bare twigs. Less is more, they say… 894