An article by Indah Setiawati, The Jakarta Post.

Faik Fahmi, who lives on Jl. Ampera Raya in South Jakarta, enjoyed his backyard like never before after a large section of white, high wall surrounding his yard was transformed into a vertical garden three months ago.

“I didn’t like spending time in this back terrace as I couldn’t stand the heat. I felt stuck with the limited space here,” he told The Jakarta Post at his house over the weekend.

His house, on a 590-square-meter plot of land, has a backyard that consists of a terrace, a swimming pool, a gazebo and some small chunks of green grass consisting of decorative plants and a Tabebuia tree.

In search of the missing element in his new house, Fahmi remembered the many vertical gardens he saw in the public spaces of Tokyo and Osaka when he lived in Japan for seven years.

Fueled with the inspiration, he browsed the Internet and selected a professional provider.

He chose a vertical garden with an automatic irrigation system that allowed the soilless plants water and nutrition directly from a water tank and a bucket placed on the third floor of the house.

The system used an electric pump with a timer that was set for active every few hours.

“This automatic system fits me well because I’m a busy person,” he said.

At first, he was concerned with the expense, but he never looked back after seeing the result in the 60-square-meter piece of wall.

“The cost is probably equal to a secondhand Avanza car, but I am satisfied with the result. I want to have other sections of walls installed with a vertical garden too, but I will watch the progress of this first vertical garden first,” he said.

Fahmi is among a number of Jakartans who love the idea of greening space vertically to make amends for scarce, expensive land in the capital.

Sonny Gunawan, an owner of “V-ga” a vertical garden provider, said the number of his clients grew each year since he started the business in 2010.

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