Our Living Wall and Vertical Gardening Story
For over 30 years our founder has been inventing, manufacturing and supporting the use of plantable, living retaining walls. For the past decade, we have been designing living walls and vertical gardens for corporations, restaurants, hotels, and homeowners who want to display beautiful ornamental plants or eat the freshest produce, in a unique and artistic way. A few years ago, we noticed a surge in interest in our Varden™ vertical gardens from organic farmers, many in urban areas, who began using our structures to grow leafy greens and herbs on rooftops or small fields. They liked the vertical concept because it saves them precious space and allows them to grow more food, in soil, without more space. Seeing urban farmers’ innovative use of our product inspired us. With the sustainability and local produce movement, we’ve become convinced that we should put more focus on food. Knowing that nutritious, clean, food access and equality are problems in need of solutions now. We began tweaking the Varden™ Living Wall system to be the best Vertical Garden that everyone can use to start growing their own food even if short on space. Together with our Varden™ Living Retaining Wall blocks, we have an impactful line of wall planter products to empower modern gardeners to achieve the most environmental service from unused spaces and landscapes!
SYNKD Magazine
Angelique was kind enough to interview Mark on their podcast and it is a great way to understand our history and mission for innovative “green building” in the built environment.
It all started with plantable retaining walls and has grown from there.
Not sure where the time has gone but the fire for our mission has never been greater!
Our Mission
Innovative Urban Ag – utilizing space in creative and innovative ways to make gardening accessible. Verdtech, Inc. is committed to addressing issues that the world faces related to food access, environmental, and human well-being. We are accomplishing these intentions through technology focused on “greening” traditional structures, such as landscape retaining walls and bringing healthy food growth into cities and consumer homes with vertical gardens, while providing economically viable solutions that incorporate nature into the built environment.
Our Actions
- Focusing on small block retaining walls for landscape wall construction that can be planted and grown over for green-space and habitat.
- Providing an alternative to concrete block that reduces fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions associated with concrete.
- Innovating delivery of 1 sf wall blocks for small landscape walls that are safer to handle, and take up less space for inventory or storage.
- Engineering durable, long lasting components that provide vertical gardening for urban areas in need of clean food.
- Championing Biophilia for human health by increasing green-space through living retaining walls and vertical urban gardens.
- Empowering people to garden vertically at their home, apartment ,or condo, even if short on space.
Our Impact
- We believe in self-sufficiency, sustainability, returning habitat and secure access to food.
- We understand that use of local compost creates sustainable growing practices that lead to carbon capture, sequestration and reduction all around.
- Now more than ever, the world needs to know where its food comes from, how it’s grown, when it’s picked and what’s been sprayed on it.
- The world’s population is increasingly more urban and it makes sense that local growing is one of the solutions so harvesting can be closer to time of need, at the peak of freshness and nutrition.
- Gardening at home, urban and community gardens and even indoor vertical farming represent food security and access.
- Our mission is to green the built environment and improve the way the world eats by evolving the garden.
- The next evolution of gardening is vertical and it allows nutritious food to be grown in small spaces, out-of-the-way places and empowers everyone to grow more of their own food.
- We make elegantly designed, high functioning, American-Made products that will last for many years. Our Varden Kitchen Gardens and Varden Block Walls are just the beginning and they enable everyone to create more habitat and start growing their own food for fun, beauty, and nutrition.