Covent Garden salutes horticultural heritage with new vertical park

Covent Garden will be paying homage to its horticultural heritage from next month when one of central London’s biggest “vertical parks” is planted opposite its Underground station.

The millions of visitors who exit the Piccadilly Line station each year will be greeted by a living wall covering the entire facade of the normally drab brick building on the corner of Long Acre and James Street.

The walls are being planted with 21,000 flowers and shrubs of 21 different species over an area of 1,500 sq ft and will be revealed in September. It was designed by Sussex based living wall specialists Biotecture, whose gardeners abseiled down the building to carry out the planting. It will be watered by a drip irrigation system using up to 80 per cent “harvested” rainwater.

The garden is the latest initiative in a programme of “greening” an area know for centuries for its flower market where Professor Henry Higgins famously met Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. More than 100 flower crates and barrows have been placed around Covent Garden’s Piazza and elements of the Silver medal winning RHS Chelsea Flower Show garden ‘500 Years of Covent Garden’, including 60 year old apple trees were installed in June.

It also comes weeks after the collapse of the Garden Bridge scheme after Mayor Sadiq Khan refused to give it his backing. Michelle McGrath, director of the Covent Garden’s major landlord Capco, said; “The introduction of a vertical park creates a world-class entrance to the Covent Garden estate and demonstrates our commitment to the greening of Covent Garden. The installation celebrates the heritage of the area as an orchard and Flower Market, and is a wonderful welcome to visitors of the estate.”