Greenwall’s Mark Paul of Mosman revitalises Qantas First vertical garden
SELF-confessed “plant person” and Mosmanite Mark Paul explains how he returned the stunning Qantas First Lounge vertical garden to its roots.
Mosman
Don't miss out on the headlines from Mosman. Followed categories will be added to My News.
IT’S not often that someone’s success could do them out of a job, but that might be a distant possibility for Mosman’s Mark Paul and his rejuvenation of the iconic Qantas First green wall.
The 2012 Australian Horticulturist of the Year — who backed the honour up with the 2014 Community Award of Excellence — aims to maintain the sweeping wall of greenery less and less, while returning the wall to its almost self-sustainable roots.
The renowned Qantas International First Lounge in Sydney Airport celebrated its 10th anniversary last year.
Mr Paul was part of the original team behind the impressive natural entrance, designed by internationally celebrated tropical botanist Patrick Blanc, in the Marc Newson-designed lounge.
And there were less than six degrees of separation between the two Australians: Mr Paul’s sister attended art school with Newson, so he knew the acclaimed industrial designer well.
Mr Paul, founder and director of The Greenwall Company, has “greened” countless parts of the built environment.
Greenwall’s projects include a waterside man cave in Mosman, a private harbourside barbecue area in Point Piper, a pond wall in a Vaucluse home, a wall at Mosman Prep School, Google headquarters in Pyrmont and Australia’s first six-star green-rated building, The Gauge in Melbourne.
Mr Paul, a former marine biologist who worked for the CSIRO, estimates Greenwall has done almost 500 green wall projects and a similar number of green roofs in Australia alone. Greenwall has also worked on projects overseas in countries including New Zealand and Brazil.
People thought Mr Paul was “crazy” when he started making green walls almost three decades ago: “It seemed like a strange thing to do — I started building panels of them,” he said.
“So, we used to get asked to go and put those plants into gardens on trees and on rock walls around Sydney.”
Indeed, Mr Paul previously hosted presentations about his work, called “Going out on a limb”, and is considered a pioneer of the green wall in Australia.
He began focusing on green walls and roofs about 16 years ago, inspired by his passion for lithophytic and epiphytic plants and their habitats.
“I could start coating cities in them so, that’s what we have gone on to do,” Mr Paul said.
“I was influenced by my maternal grandmother: she came from Ireland, I think, in the Depression and she grew everything from cuttings and seeds.
“So, everything was borrowed, given or whatever and so, I was always interested in that group of plants: orchids, bromeliads and stuff, which grow on trees or on rocks.”
The horticulturist’s love of plants which find homes on trees and rocks is reflected in his renewed work on the Qantas First green wall. Patrick Blanc asked him to revisit the project.
The wall remains one of Greenwall’s largest in the country, indoor or outdoor: “There are rarely projects over 400sq m and this is right in that category so, it was a big project for Australia,” Mr Paul said.
“Overseas in Singapore and New Zealand, we have done 10,000sq m projects and they come up on plans here, but in reality, they end up being no bigger than 400sq m.”
Greenwall began maintaining the Qantas green wall about two years ago, after an indoor plant hire company had been responsible for its upkeep.
The nephrolepis (fishbone fern) and dracaena (happy plant) had become the dominant species.
So, Mr Paul implemented a maintenance program focused on the long-term revitalisation of the wall, rather than a faster but costly, widespread replanting.
“We basically kept Patrick’s planting plan as best as we could in the pattern, but not with the plant species because eight years later we know a hell of a lot more about what’s going to work better, and all the rest of it, and we could also upgrade how the irrigation worked so, we reduced the amount of water it uses,” Mr Paul said.
“You’re far better doing it over a longer period of time; it will cost you less and in the end, you won’t have to get any new plants in, which is where we are now.
“So, for the last six months, there have been no new plants added.”
The Qantas green wall project — including six smaller walls in the upstairs spa — is home to about 80 plant species, a mixture of exotics and Australian natives.
There are 15,000 plants, reflecting a high biodiversity, including orchids, bromeliads, African violets, figs, ferns, lilies and peperomias.
The vertical garden also benefits from “transplants”, sourced from on and off the wall.
Mr Paul “recycled” the lounge’s potted moth orchids which had seen better days and rehomed them in the green wall, where they flourish.
“The idea with most walls you would do, you have at least 10 per cent of the plant material that is going to produce cuttings or offsets that you can reuse, like the chlorophytum (spider or aeroplane plant) in there, which has all the small offsets,” he said.
“So, that means if there are any problems with the plants in another area of the wall or whatever, you can just fix it from another part of the wall.
“In the spas upstairs, all the begonias in the walls up there are doing incredibly well so, we just moved them down to other areas.
“We do bring in some odd specimen things, which we think might work from time to time, but other than that, there’s completely adequate plant material and if they wanted to extend it to double the size, we could probably plant it with the plant material off the existing wall.”
The green wall also features a Heston Blumenthal-esque twist: Mr Paul picked and ate some of the blueberry-like fruit from the medinilla myriantha (Malaysian orchid) near the entry while showing the Mosman Daily around.
The greenery is similarly interactive in other ways: it inspires conversation between Qantas First guests, staff and Mr Paul and his team when they visit to maintain it.
A passenger departing during the photo shoot compliments him: “By the way, good choice of plants,” she says.
The self-confessed “plant person” is always happy to explain the plants to people, but might enjoy the chance less often in future because the goal, a thriving wall, needs less maintenance.
“To start with, we were going in two days a week with four people; now, it is once every three weeks with two people,” Mr Paul said.
Nevertheless, he will no doubt find another concrete landscape to turn green. “I’ve always been interested in plants,” he said.
“I’d much rather be stuffing around with the plants than sitting in an office. As you can see by my hands!”