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Friday, January 29, 2010

The Roof Garden

 Posted by PicasaAfter reading about green roofs, naturally wanted to cover everything in sight with green roofs. This proved somewhat impractical. However, nothing daunted, found a  a dormer window  which offered a perfect experimental area for a roof garden. This window faces due west, facing an area about 6 x 7 which covered by  normal composition roof, reflects an astonishing amount of heat into a study. The plants in the photo are the materials: sedum, barrel cactus, kalanchoe and echeverias.
The roof garden was started, though not yet finished--only 2 feet of the space was covered. Then it rained, and rained, and rained. Bliss.
The experiment continues.......because most of the green roofs have been done in Europe, using sempervivums as the basic plant material. Unless you plant to irrigate your green roof with rain birds as the Huntington Garden does, plants having more prolonged  heat resistance becomes essential as the basic planting material. Cacti and succulents from our deserts and Mexico are good candidates. (To be continued.)

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