Green Marketing Gone Vertical in Seattle

Rebecca Sheedy of Floraform Design is thrilled that her first vertical garden is also one of her most visible. Marx Foods may be the first, but Rebecca has since spent five years creating living walls, and ran a business maintaining gardens for several years before that. “I just love plants and always find a way to be out there with them,” she says.

Rebecca Sheedy with a Patric Blanc in Paris.

She honed her expertise while studying botany at the University of Washington and The Evergreen State College. “I’m really into color, contrast, texture and shapes,” she says. In fact, her expertise is international. “During college, I did research in Costa Rica to estimate the biomass of forest canopy. We found there’s more biomass in the canopy than on the forest floor.”

Rebecca’s vertical garden serenely packs a green marketing punch from its post overlooking the Marx Foods checkout area. “I started small with a Florafelt 8-pocket for the first 6 to 8 months,” Rebecca explains. “I learned what plants were happy where. It’s now 7 panels or 56 pockets.”

 

Florafelt Vertical Garden by Rebecca Sheedy, Floraform Design for Marx Foods, Seattle.

Plus a gorgeous frame that beautifully sets off the plants within. “The frame was Marx Foods’ idea. To hide the freezers, we incorporated the garden into the freezer wall. The garden sets Marx apart, makes a statement and generates a lot of buzz.”

Florafelt Vertical Garden by Rebecca Sheedy, Floraform Design for Marx Foods, Seattle.

Rebecca selects plants as carefully as Marx Foods shops for their clientele. The garden includes Homalomena, Medusa Bromeliads, Kangaroo Paw Fern, Vresia (a mottled leaf bromeliad), Spathiphyllum, Anthurium, Aglaonema (has a good sprawling habit and fills in the edges”), Philodendron and Schefflera ‘Soliel,’ which has stunning chartreuse leaves.

Rebecca shopped around before settling exclusively on Plants On Walls. “Back then a lot of people created walls themselves in a Patrick Blanc style, stapling felt to a wall. But I made sure to use a Compact Kit – it’s fully contained and operates on its own. I like how the hardware is invisible. People saw it and got in touch with me.”

Florafelt Vertical Garden Compact Kits by Rebecca Sheedy, Floraform Design for Marx Foods, Seattle.

Since then, Rebecca has created distinctive and beautiful vertical gardens for restaurants, homes, wine shops, doctors’ offices, you name it. Interestingly, doctors request the gardens for their examination rooms. “There is a big alternative medicine scene here – doctors prescribe plants as medicine,” she says.

Florafelt Vertical Garden Compact Kits by Rebecca Sheedy, Floraform Design for Marx Foods, Seattle.