THE PLANT LIST

Allium schoenoprasum
(chives)

Allysum wulfenianum
(basket of gold)

Arabis caucasia 'Snowcap'

Artemisia stelleraiana 'Old Woman'
Artemisia 'Silver Mound'

Aster alpinus 'Dunkle Schone' (alpine aster)

Cerastium tomentosum
(snow in summer)

Coryphantha vivipara
(pincushion cactus)

Dianthus caryophyllus
'Grenadin White'
Dianthus plumarius 'Dad's Favorite'
Dianthus knappii 'Yellow Beauty'
(carnations and pinks)

Euphorbia myrsinites
(donkeytail spurge)

Festuca glauca 'Elijah Blue'

Geum triflorum (prairie smoke)

Oenothera missouriensis 'Silver Blade' (missouri primrose)

Orostachys iwarenge (dunce caps)

Saponaria oxymoides

Sedum ewersii var. homophyllum
Sedum reflexum 'Blue Spruce'
Sedum rupestre 'Angelina'
Sedum spurium 'Dragon's Blood'
Sedum sichotense
Sedum sieboldii 'Mediovariegatum'
Sedum sieboldii 'October Daphne'Sedum spurium 'Coral Carpet'
Sedum spurium 'Tricolor'
Sedum 'Purple Emporer'
Sedum 'Mini Autumn Joy'
Sedum 'Frosty Morn'
(stonecrops)

Thyme citriodorus 'Silver Queen'
Thyme praecox 'Pink Chintz'
Thyme pseudolanuginosus (wooly)
Thyme serpyllum 'Coccinea'
(red wild)

Scabiosa columbaria 'Butterfly Blue' (pincushion flower)

Semperviven mixed varieties

Veronica repens 'Sunshine' (creeping golden speedwell)

  Green roofs are an ancient technology being reinterpreted into modern applications around the world. Many large cities are using green roofs to lesson the negative effects that so much man made surface materials are creating, including excessive heat build up in summer, poor air quality, water run off and storm drain overload, and shrinking habitat and an imbalanced ecosystem.

Green roofs clean and cool the air, filter rain water, slow run off, create habitat where once there was none and make attractive green space for the comfort and enjoyment of city inhabitants.

 As if all that weren't enough, the environmental benefits extend to energy conservation, as well. The insulating value of green roofs surpass traditional roofing systems significantly enough to offset the extra initial cost of structural building. And the life of a green roof is much longer than typical roofs, conserving materials, easing use of limited landfill space and saving consumer labor costs

 Now that some major American cities have accepted green roofing as an idea whose time has come again, more residential consumers are beginning to look at green roofs as an excellent alternative for home use for many of the same reasons.

We like the idea so much, we decided it was time for us to try a small rooftop garden at the nursery to see how it works. Over the next few weeks we'll be completing the construction of a porch roof over the entrance to our heated greenhouse, and we'll continue to post photos of our project to show the process. Our hope is to trial plants and other materials here to help local builders and consumers interested in the technology find appropriate building materials, planting media and hardy plant material.



Drains allow rainwater to escape the roof structure. Copper pipe will be attached to the underside of the drains and run to a rain barrel. The caging on the top is to prevent the rock from clogging the drain openings.

Doug mixes the planting media in a cement mixer, then fills tree buckets to load onto the tractor bucket to lift onto the rooftop (below).

 Doug moved 9,000 pounds of planting media onto the rooftop, being careful not to lift the erosion webbing.

 

 This project has come a long way since the framing was first built!
Planting media was scooped into each cell of the erosion webbing. Each cell holds one plant.

 Here's a photo detailing the foundation layers of the green roof. Once the structure was in place, Doug skinned the whole framework with particle board and roll roofing. He's built a box around the entire roof perimeter using angle iron to attach 2x6 securely. Over this he put rubber roof liner, which is then protected by a layer of high density foam insulation panels. These panels are used primarily to protect the rubber roofing material, but will also provide some insulation to plant roots as an added bonus. Over all of this goes the expandable ersosion webbing. This is being bolted to the top of the roof, then the panels are bolted together all along the edges of each section to hold them securely in place. This is the structure which will hold the planting medium and plants in place.

 Be sure to visit the nursery to see the new green roof in person!