There once was a time when the world’s great architects used greenery to cover up flaws in their designs. “The physician can bury his mistakes,” Frank Lloyd Wright once told the New York Times, “but the architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.”

Instead of using greenery as a form of concealer, many of today’s urban planners, who are always looking to create more green space in cities, see green walls as the height of forward-thinking design.

G-Sky Green Roofs and Walls (www.greenrooftops.com/) specializes in green walls, ones that are more elaborate than the traditional ivy and vine-covered walls of the past. For around the cost of $100 per square foot, G-Sky will install sturdy wall panels in your home that contain plant-life such as licorice ferns, English ivy, begonias, and even huckleberries.

G-Sky has been hired to build green space for some high-profile projects, including a 2,000-square-foot plant-covered wall at Vancouver International Airport that will be one of the first things that travellers to Vancouver will see as they walk from the airport to the Canada Line. Organic grocery chain Whole Foods Market has also hired G-Sky to construct a green exterior wall for its upcoming store near Cambie Street. And the company is also working with local architecture firm Busby Perkins+Will on several new projects including condominium developments, which means an increasing number of urban dwellers will be surrounded by green.

Design architects at G-Sky use multicoloured plants, generally with reds, yellows, greens, or blue hues, for the interiors and exteriors of buildings to invent lush collages for the eye that couldn’t be created by human-made materials. “It’s almost like a canvas that the landscape architect and the architect never had before,” says G-Sky president Chad Sichello at the company’s Annacis Island office. “Architects are always looking for new material.”

Sichello says that green walls can exponentially add to the benefits of a green roof, a traditional roof insulated by a layer of vegetation that can help reduce storm-water runoff and lower energy costs. Like green roofs, green walls can act as insulation, potentially reducing room temperatures by at least one to two degrees Celsius, which can add up to substantial energy savings. Green walls also provide sound insulation and clean internal air of contaminants such as smog and dust particles.

While G-Sky tends to work with more high-end clients, many homeowners are installing green walls themselves. Brampton-based Elevated Wall Systems Inc. (www.elteasygreen.com/) sells prepackaged green-wall kits complete with plants as well as empty wall racks that customers can fill on their own with grass, ferns, or even lettuce, herbs, carrots, and berries.

Sichello, however, warns that there are risks attached to doing it yourself. “You can’t throw up a green wall like you can a coat of paint,” he says. “With green walls, you’re constantly pouring water on a wall that is not necessarily meant to have water constantly poured on it.”

Sichello recommends having a green wall installed by a professional contractor to ensure that the wall’s integrity is not compromised. A properly installed green-wall system must be able to prevent plant roots from making holes in the wall and allowing moisture to infiltrate the building.

For all their benefits, green walls are not quite cost-effective enough to spread into the mainstream. Unlike in countries like Germany and Japan, Canadian builders do not receive substantial subsidies or tax breaks for installing them. Green walls may not make the best economic sense yet, but a growing number of designers believe that letting plants spill off of rooftops and on to walls serves as a constant reminder that cities need green space to thrive.

“A green wall is a feature to the building that is a vital element to its design, and makes a statement,” says Sichello. “The beauty of green walls, unlike green roofs, is that it’s not out of sight, out of mind.”