Laneway greening can soften and beautify otherwise harsh, dull spaces, while at the same time engaging communities in the environmental stewardship of their neighbourhoods and improving their quality of life.

ABOUT THIS GUIDE

This guide provides examples of and tips on implementing laneway greening techniques, from simple interventions like adding planters and trellises, to more complex interventions such as creating living walls and installing permeable paving. It provides you with the steps, contacts, online resources, planning requirements, and funding tips that you need to jumpstart your laneway greening project.

WHY GREEN YOUR LANEWAY?

• Provide an everyday space for neighbours to relax and come together;

• Provide attractive, safe, and local play spaces for children;

• Reduce the urban heat island effect;

• Increase the natural infiltration of stormwater and reduce stormwater runoff;

• Remove pollutants from the air;

• Absorb wind and reduce wind speeds; and

• Increase the biodiversity and resilience of the urban natural environment by providing micro-habitats for plants, birds, animals, and insects.

GREENING TECHNIQUES

There are a range of different greening techniques and methods that can work in Toronto’s laneways, which you can choose from and combine depending on the space available, your level of expertise, and available budget. This guide provides examples of and instruction on the implementation of a range of laneway greening techniques.

Container PLanting

Planting containers, such as freestanding pots, hanging baskets, window boxes, and wall baskets, make use of the horizontal space available on the edge of laneways. They allow you to introduce vegetation even when paved surfaces and constrained space make more conventional gardens difficult. 

Vertical Greening

Vertical greening makes use of the vertical wall space available in laneways. This type of greening can be implemented simply with climbing vines rooted in the ground that grow up building walls and trellises, or with more complex living walls that include soil and irrigation systems.

Planting Beds

There is often a narrow strip of private property running alongside a laneway, between the public right-of-way and the adjacent fence or building wall. This is an ideal spot for a planting bed, whether conventional, raised, or a rain garden (a garden designed with a slope, fill, and vegetation to capture stormwater runoff).

Permeable Paving

As we’ve seen over the past few years, flooding can be a big issue in the city, especially during major storm events. Introducing permeable paving to your laneway can allow stormwater to percolate naturally into the soil, while also enhancing its visual appeal. This paving can span the entire width of your laneway, or can cover just the drainage channel at the center. If the central drainage channel of every laneway in Toronto was paved with permeable paving that would give us more than 200,000 meters square of natural drainage space!

 GREEN LANEWAYS WE LOVE

Cities all over the world are greening their laneways using a combination of greening techniques discussed in this guide. Here are some examples of green laneways in North America and Australia:

BECOME A LANEWAY CHAMPION

The Laneway Project has developed over a dozen free-to-user public planning resources for use by grassroots-level community groups. Discover our resources and please consider donating to support the creation of more useful toolkits by becoming a Toronto Laneway Champion.