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Green walls are seen as an important architectural element in the design of sustainable cities, helping to make cities ecologically rich, green, and healthy places to live. The use of green walls, which have seen a wide range of applications worldwide, is supported mainly because of their potential in combating climate change, and international standards are being developed for the design, implementation, and monitoring of green wall projects. In this study, the effects of different growing media used in green wall systems on plant area and the increase in green wall performance were evaluated using an indirect monitoring technique. Peat, hazelnut husks, rice hulls and perlite were mixed in different proportions to produce the growing media, and their physical and chemical properties were determined. Western red cedar (Thuja plicata) and boxwood (Buxus sempervirens L.) were used for planting the green wall. To measure the growth of the green wall and the planting area, images were taken and examined after planting and at the end of the growing period. According to the findings of this study, we found that growing media with a high water holding capacity and high organic matter content were more successful in terms of increasing plant area and green wall performance. However, factors such as pH and phosphorus were found to have negative effects on plant growth. In addition, it was determined that the physical and chemical properties of the growing media used in green wall systems are important for the plant area in green wall systems and that a balanced optimization of these properties increases the efficiency of green walls. The results obtained in this study show that the use of indirect monitoring techniques is a fast and effective method for monitoring the development of green wall systems. The appropriate use of this technique could be an effective tool for the standardization of installation and could contribute efficiently to the maintenance of green wall systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most widely used growing media in the production of potted ornamental plants is peat. However, the studies for alternative solutions are being conducted due to the reasons such as restricted peat sources, high cost, destruction of natural environment due to peat production and variability in the quality of produced peat. In the relevant literature, there are two basic ideas on which the studies have focused on. The first one is the development of new growing media using organic-origin wastes, the second one is the preparation of the mixtures in which organic and inorganic materials are used as a component of growingmediums. In this study which was prepared in parallel with the relevant main ideas in the literature, the effects of perlite utilization on the physical properties of indigenous peat, and on those of the growing media obtained from hazelnut cinder, which is among agricultural organic materials in our country and has considerable potential to be the most important alternative of peat, were investigated. For this purpose, the physical properties of the growing medium, prepared by mixing perlite with raw peat and hazelnut husk, at various ratios (10,15,20,25%), were investigated, and the results obtained were compared with sphagnum peat, and with desired properties for ideal growing medium, in the literature. When the results obtained from the study were examined, it was seen that as well as the highest values were observed in the mixtures using 25% perlite, The perlite addition increased the porosity of raw peat by 68.25% and air capacity by 30.03%, and that the hazelnut husk decreased air capacity, higher than the ideal values, by 47.19%,thus approximating it its ideal value range. With increasing perlite ratio in the mixtures, the organic substance contents and water holding capacities of the growing medium decreased as their pH values increased. However, in applications using 25% Perlite, the shrinkage rates of raw peat and hazelnut husk were found as 17.05% and 6.41% respectively, and the water resuction times of those were found as 1.52 and 1.21 minutes, respectively. Based on these results, it can be said that the most important contribution of perlite utilization for raw peat and hazelnut husk is to decrease shrinkage rates and water resuction times, and that this improvement will avail in preventing the damages that occur in plant roots due to drying and shrinking of the growing media, and in decreasing the irrigation frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]