Creative Garden Structures

Some of you who read this blog may know what a green roof is, while some of you may just think I'm talking about a metal roof that is green.  Those of you, though, who know that a green roof (also called a living roof) is one covered with plants...may be interested in the plants that are working out well for us. Green roofs are really catching on in some places around the US...but are especially popular in Europe. Here in Florida, we've been a little slower to see green roofs being built....mostly you find them on buildings within a university campus. Of course, Florida has some special climate issues that need to be considered by anyone looking to put plants on a roof. For one thing...it gets HOT here.  For like nine months of the year (doggone it!). During that time it can be very humid and even wet....except when it 's not. (Like it has been the past month or so...temps in the high 90's but no rain). Then, in the winter you have generally mild weather....except when it's not.....and the temps go below freezing once or twice (or more) between November and February.

We have had a green roof on a shed and on an addition to our garage for two or three years now and have a good idea of what will work and what won't. For the most part, I let Mother Nature do her thing and only occasionally these days do I introduce a new plant to one of the roofs.

Here is a photo I took today of our larger green roof:

Here are some of the plants I can name currently on the roof....

blanketflower (they are very happy), beach sunflower (just coming back after a hard winter), ornamental peanut, phyla nodiflora (also known as creeping charlie and other things), lyre-leaf sage, dewberry, wild onion, rustweed, Florida pennyroyal and scrub mint.  I recently put a single coreopsis plant up there to see what would happen. If we get some regular rain...it will be happy. if we don't ...it will not be. Also...I have a couple of clump-forming grasses that volunteered themselves. I think one might be purple love grass. Occasionally, I get up there and remove little drake elm trees and little raintrees. I need to get up there soon and remove some grass that I don't want growing up there. I do not need to irrigate at all except in extreme drought. I have a micro-irrigation line up there but have only needed to turn it on twice since the beginning of spring. (This was during a period of 100 degree days with no rain!)

Another closer view of the blanketflower & scrub mint...

The shed roof has on it....beach sunflowers, sedum (that have never done well, but continue to struggle along), some kind of mint (spearmint or peppermint, I forget which), rustweed and phyla nodiflora. I water this occasionally (because the substrate is only about 4 inches) using water collected in a rain barrel and pumped up to the roof by a solar-powered battery and bilge pump.