Comments on: Breathing New Life into Urban Rooftops

By: Jen

Jen — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:36:28 +0000

There is a great children’s book called “The Curious Garden” which my son got for his birthday this year. It’s about a boy who starts to create urban gardens in unexpected places, and by the end of the book the entire city is transformed into green spaces. Abandoned train tracks, staircases, rooftops, and any other available space comes to life. I love the idea.

By: Karina

Karina — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:04:16 +0000

I love the new way to bring life to big cities like New York or Mexico city. I would like to learn and bring green roofing to Xalapa, Veracruz MEXICO where I live. We help the enviroment and allows to have fun designing and creating green areas.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:24:23 +0000

Getting water up to the roof I would think is the easy part, especially in New York where most of the tall buildings already have rooftop water tanks. Also, it’s not a matter of getting it all the way to the roof, it’s just getting it up one more floor. Rain harvesting is also a great idea for this.

By: Wayne Mills

Wayne Mills — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:37:28 +0000

Adam,
The plants used on extensive greenroofs, (roofs with 3-5″ of soil) are generally succulent plants mainly from the Sedum family. These plants require very little water once established and do quite well with the natural rainfall and require little or no additional irrigation. Usually needing watering just the first few weeks after planting and nothing more.

By: Adam Ballai

Adam Ballai — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 22:20:32 +0000

I just recently saw a special pertaining to this on discovery channel. I’m intrigued by the concept, but how does one lower the energy cost and not waste more energy just trying to get water on to the top of buildings?

By: GreenvsGreedy

GreenvsGreedy — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 15:18:28 +0000

On a much smaller scale, I know people are re-using plastic storage bins to create mini-gardens on their decks, balcony, rooftops… A friend has great success with these for tomatoes and peppers! I would think the risk of chemical leaching from the plastic into the soil is low??? Any comment?

GreenvsGreedy
http//greenvsgreedy.blogspot.com/

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:15:08 +0000

The persistent problem with rooftop gardening has always been weight of soil. It’s something like 200 pounds per cubic foot when saturated. Not sure about that, it sounds high, but weight is still a problem once you have a whole rooftop dedicated to plants. I was introduced to a new type of soil called “GaiaSoil”. It is about 1/3 as heavy as regular soil when wet, but the results are just as good as regular soil. It is made out of recycled styrofoam and compost. This stuff will revolutionize the whole rooftop gardening movement.

By: Hosting Men

Hosting Men — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:32:37 +0000

Heh what great idea. Never really seen this but it is a very cool innovation, its nice and there are great benefits

By: UKGBC releases report, “Biodiversity and the Built Environment” « BuildIntel

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:08:04 +0000

[...] building products like green roofs, living walls, as well as building practices like landscape architecture, parks and urban gardens [...]

By: Trey Granger

Trey Granger — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:05:43 +0000

Solid article, Libuse. One other benefit I can see of plant life on the roof is improved drainage. A flat roof can get weighed down by rainfall and cause leaks, but plants will be able to absorb a lot of this water. It’s like a natural version of a rain barrel.