How to make an artificial living wall

From trendy indoor wall features to leafy outdoor seating areas, living walls have boomed in popularity in recent years to transform cold concrete and dreary fences into a botanical paradise in the comfort of your home.

With the real thing, you've got to install special drainage and keep up with regular pruning and watering, whereas by making a faux living wall, you can create the same look with no maintenance, no mess and year-round style.

All you need to know is how to mount our living wall panels to your fence or wall and we've got a video below to show you. Alternatively, read on for full step-by-step instructions.

Shop our wonderland living wall as seen in the video below. 

What you'll need: 

• Artificial green wall foliage

• Staple gun, drill or cable ties 

• A tape measure 

• An extra pair of hands if available

• Frame or trellis (optional)

Making an artificial living wall step-by-step:

1. Choose your green wall mats

2. Measure up

3. Trellis or no trellis?

4. Connect the mats

5. Attach to your wall or fence

6. Fill in gaps

7. Arrange the foliage

Choosing your living wall mat

With so many to choose from it can be a little daunting to pick out the right mat for you.

There are our basic boxwood, cedar and buxus mats which are generally used for building faux hedging, smaller 50cm mats like our fern living wall and then there are larger 100cm mats like our forest foliage living wall and galaxy living wall. We also have a selection of flame-resistant living wall mats for commercial spaces.

If you want something to fulfil your dream of an elegant English garden, try our traditional ivy foliage mat or if you'd rather something a little more modern, try our tropical living wall or woodland living wall.

To help you get an idea of how your living wall will look, have a browse of our garden inspiration or view our full range of faux living wall mats.

Ordering the right number of mats

There's nothing worse than being mid-way through making your living wall only to realise that you've run out of foliage!

To stop this from happening, we have an easy-to-use calculator on each product page for our wall mats. Just measure the area that you want to cover, pop your measurements into the calculator and it will tell you how many mats you need to order.

You can always cut your mats down to size with scissors if you need to.

Use a trellis or mount straight to your surface

Once we've delivered your living wall mats and you're ready to transform your space, you may want to consider mounting a wooden trellis to your wall or fence using fixings suited to your wall type.

This will make it much easier to fix your mats to your surface, especially if you want to use them either inside or on a brick or stone wall as you can then use staples or cable ties, rather than having to drill straight into your wall and potentially damaging it.

We would recommend using some preservative on your frame or trellis if you're using it outside.

Connect your mats together

If you look at the back of our living wall mats, you'll see small a/b connectors to clip your mats together which will create a seamless run of foliage.

It's easiest if you clip two or three mats together at a time and connect larger sections together once they're on your surface, as it will get a little tricky to lift and mount all of your mats at the same time.

Start adding your wall mats

When you're ready to make your living wall, you'll find it much easier if you have another person to hold your mats up while you fix them to your surface.

Option 1: staple gun

Our preferred and fastest way to mount living wall mats is by using a staple gun to attach them to your trellis or fence. Simply hold your mats against your surface, pull back the foliage and staple the plastic mesh to your fence or trellis. We would recommend using a few staples along each edge to hold your mat in place.

Option 2: cable ties

If you don't have a staple gun, you can use cable ties instead. Simply loop each cable tie through the grid on the back of your wall mat and through your trellis to hold your mats in place. Again, it's best to use a few cable ties along each edge.

Option 3: drill

The last option is to drill your mats directly to your surface. Similar to the staple gun, pull away the foliage and drill through the plastic grid into your surface to hold it in place, drilling a few screws along each edge until your mat is secure.

If you need you trim your mats down to size you can do so using a pair of scissors.

Fill in any gaps

When all your mats are attached to your surface, you can go back in with any offcuts and simply poke them through to fill in any empty gaps. Staple, cable tie or drill these in to keep them secure.

Fluff out the foliage

Finally, after all your hard work, fluff out the foliage with your hands, making sure that none of it is clumped together to give your living wall a fuller look.

Need some advice?

If you need any help at all, we're more than happy to help! Please get in touch and one of us will be able to help you with making your living wall.