Back in May, I posted about my friend Marguerite and the business she and her partner run. (See Motherplants: Where green roofs are born.) About a month ago, I swung by a site in Ithaca where she was working with a group of volunteers to prep planting units for a living wall.
Marguerite instructed the young and old alike who turned out on a hot day to transplant sedums and other living roof plants from flats into plastic wall hanging units.
Originally, the plan was to install the planting on the roof. But the required retrofitting to beef it up enough to hold the extra weight proved too expensive. So Plan B was to locate the planting where runoff from the roof will run over the plants.
The planted units were laid flat to root thoroughly and then hung a few weeks later. (See finished wall below.)
While I like the idea of green/living roofs, I don’t see too many homeowners diving in. I like the idea of trying it out on a small scale, like these doghouses I shot at Marguerite’s place or this garden shed, birdhouse and other applications blogged by Melissa over at her Gardenshed Hall of Fame website.
For more info about green/living roots, visit the Motherplants website.
