You’ve heard the old refrain: if walls could talk. But what if your walls could live?

Vertical gardening is a growing trend that’s popping up in museum exhibits, retail stores and private residences around the world.

In addition to being beautiful, vertical gardens are low-maintenance and can thrive both indoors and out, so no matter your climate or space limitations they are easy to grow. The environmental benefits of a vertical garden include improved air quality by purifying air naturally, decreased storm water run-off and organically created humidity.

Conceived by French botanist Patric Blanc, vertical gardens typically consist of a sturdy frame, modular components to hold the plants and felt fabric for the plants to adhere themselves to. Very little, if any soil is used, making vertical gardens lightweight and easy to move.

The best types of plants for a vertical garden are those that are durable, have shallow roots and don’t require a lot of water, such as succulents and moss, though you can also grow flowering vine-plants, veggies like lettuce and even fruit such as strawberries.

If you’re interested in growing your own vertical garden, ELT EasyGreen living wall kits are easy to use and include everything you need but the plants. For the DIYers out there, Lowe’s has comprehensive instructions and a list of materials you need to build you own vertical garden from scratch.

For more ideas, inspiration and pictures see Apartment Therapy’s vertical garden roundup. And don’t forget to check out Susan’s post on three container gardens that may change your life.

Image: Jill Clardy

First our gardens stretched horizontally (quite popular, that technique) – and then we had the vertical variety. What’s between the two?

If Chicago decor designers Unison have their way, diagonal gardening is the next big thing, and very clever it is, too. Riffing wildly on the millenia-old designs of terraces and ladders, the Kiikku Planter is a tiered walnut frame you prop against one wall and fill with pots of your favourite foliage. It uses your room’s vertical space, but keeps each plant separate from its neighbors, allowing easy tending and encouraging riotous growth.

Next up: How about larger-scale versions for the outside of our houses, maybe with ladders built into them? Perfect – except that popular culture seems keen to throw a spanner into the works. (Unlucky, Unison).

Image: Unison via Re-Nest

If you’re still chuckling from the weirdest of 2008′s green building designs, pop some popcorn and pull up a chair before you check out the Dragonfly – it’s a 600-meter-tall wing-shaped skyscraper filled with self-sufficient offices and vertical gardens. Would you be happy to see this against the Manhattan skyline?

New Zealand comedian Mike King has been talking green for a while now, yet that didn’t keep him promoting the pork industry – until he broke into a pig farm with animal activists and saw things for himself. “If I had known this was going on I would never have supported this.” Read the full story at Stuff.

Another summer, another tide of sunscreen attacking man and beast alike – unless you go for the new wave of eco-friendly versions. Check out Alternative Consumer’s recommendations, and have a look at our own.

If you work in the heirloom tomato industry, you’ll be fuming after Scientific American’s Brendan Borrell described heirlooms as “feeble and inbred” in an article that implied these strains of fruit were fatally flawed and needed a genetic band-aid. A blistering response wasn’t long in coming, prompting Mr. Borrell to take back a few of his ill-chosen words. You can read our Vanessa‘s thoughts on the subject at Civil Eats.

How about this for inflammatory? Writer and activist Michael Pollan is so concerned about food from mass-commercialized agriculture that he advises us to avoid all food we’ve seen advertised. Pioneering or paranoid? Read his argument at AlterNet and decide for yourself.

When people look at wind turbines, they make a lazy association: spinning blades = bird-killing machines = worse than traditional power. The problem, argues Benjamin Sovacool at Scitizen, is that few of us see first-hand the damage mining and acid rain does to our feathered friends, and out of sight means out of mind. Wind turbines have a ways to go, it’s true, but the conventional energy industry kills far more birds.

For the fellas out there who like to explore themselves – I mean figuratively, for pity’s sake – there’s a new magazine on that very topic, called Masc. Top tip? Funny is hot.

Some things shouldn’t be so small – stamp-sized cellphone manufacturers, I’m talking to you. In the same category is bonkers Brit Perry Watkins, who has turned a children’s ride into the world’s smallest road-legal automobile. Parking should be a cinch, although beware of being crushed under the wheels of passing bicycles. A unique concept, we dearly hope.

If you clicked on our popular TOMS vegan shoe giveaway and are now finding that standard footwear no longer measures up, hot-foot it to Greenopia where Katherine has listed the top eco-sneakers on the market today and gives advice on where to donate your shoes when they’re falling off your feet.

He’s walked 1,200 miles to raise awareness for the plight of homeless children. He’s about to walk the 600 miles from Atlanta to Washington. And he’s 11 years old. A kind of philanthropic Karl Bushby, Zach Bonner is a fund-raising walking machine, and you can read his story at MSNBC.

As someone who once got a chili seed in one of his eyes, I can attest that making hot sauce is dangerous. You need to know exactly what you’re doing, so we reckon you can’t go far wrong with Aleta’s comprehensive guide at Omnomicon. Although – is there a greener alternative to vinyl gloves?

We know that organic is the way to go in principle. But what about practice? Enough of “should”: is organic better? Chelsea Green‘s Makenna Goodman isn’t so sure. Have we been robbed by companies willfully misusing the loosely-defined organic label? Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm thinks Goodman’s aim is a little off: the real problem is the food system that small-scale farming challenges. Where do you weigh in?

If you’re wondering what the force of nature known as Bette Midler is up to these days, you don’t live in New York. She’s been tackling the city’s legendary garbage problems, and her New York Restoration Project has stumped up $38 million for good causes – not the first time she’s set such an inspiring example. Respect to the lady with the voice that parts your hair.

So, modular house-building is convenient, adaptive to the environment and oh-so-very-cool. But did you realise that you could knock a prefab together in just 8 days? It takes me that long to put up a shelf, let alone a house.

Finally, a dumb but impressively brave act of environmental terrorism. Just imagine if their timing had been off.

Image: Sleeping Bear