When the plan was conceived to create an online rooftop garden database there was a flaw in the plan. To me it would be a no-brainer. Ask folks to stand up and be counted. Wrong.
I listed my garden, which I am very proud of. You know: ‘lead by example’.
I have emailed people.
I have asked people.
I have visited people.
I have searched Google.
I started a LinkedIn group called Rooftop Gardening Group. Nothing.
Then one day, like a slot machine ringing a winner, they found us! Here are some of the early adopters who have contributed to our website!
- Thanks to Marguerite Wells of Mother Plants, a roof garden plant supplier, who has listed some spectacular roof projects to date. The photography of their projects is absolutely outstanding as well. Again, thanks Marguerite!! We love your work. -If I were an architect I would list the various projects I have designed. Someone did just that.
-Thanks to GS Lee and KNTA Architects who have listed the Singapore Management University City Campus roof garden. We were so very proud when Geok-ser Lee reached out to us. He has become a great internet friend as well! Thanks Geok.
-If I were an organization looking to promote sustainability, I would surely want to showcase my project! Guess what, ASHRAE did! That was a wonderful milestone to our effort to educate. ASHRAE is a beacon of light and information for so many of us. It is so very good to know that this organization stepped up to the plate and is showcasing their green roof! Thanks to Mike Vaughn at ASHRAE for taking his time to post this garden. I would bet Mike is a great person to network with about his project as well! Thanks so much to Mike, for helping the cause.
-A huge thanks to Mack Barnhardt of Air Filtration Systems, Corp who was an outstanding expert in the field of ventilation and odors. Mack contributed his time and brilliance to an article titled, Rooftop Gardens: Smell the Roses Not the Odors!, and of course for linking his website to RooftopGarden.com. Mack has really become a great resource for our entire industry! If you have any building odor issue of any kind, call Mack!!
-David Plechner, Sales Manager at C.M. Jones Incorporated (landscape design, build and maintenance firm), has truly been one of my earliest green roof professional supporters in so many ways. David is a wealth of information on the infrastructure side of the business. There is probably no roof garden question he cannot answer or he will get you the answer. I call David “my go to roof guy”. If you want professional and practical insight, contact David! David was the kindest man to give me permission to post his excellent roof garden progress photos on our Projects page. The photos and the unfolding of the story in pictures, were spot on! I wish I could find more folks like David out there with great stories to tell in pictures. As Property and Facility Managers, we love pictures and drawings as we are very visual people and C.M. Jones got the job done. Thanks to C.M. Jones.
I am still trying to unlock the secret of how to really find rooftop gardens and their founders. I have not yet found the formula or the technique. No matter what, I still believe it is worthwhile to continue and forge ahead. There are many building owners, property managers, facility managers and tenants with valuable roof space that is simply under utilized. We want to lead them to the resource and expose them to the possibility. That is the purpose of examples.
If we can get the small everyday roof gardens, along with the public roof gardens and green walls listed on the database, I think it would show those who are hesitant to pursue it, that it can be done. We may do it one roof at a time, but we will do it and appreciate every single one of them.
Do you know of any roof gardens, landscape architects, plant suppliers or municipalities encouraging roof gardens? If so, please tell me about them or send those gardeners here to add their project to our database. Remember, it just takes one roof at a time to get the job done.
As a gardener I can tell you that what we ALL want for Christmas are plants! Yes, plants. We love plants. Tons of plants. Every kind, shape or size of plant. Seeds. We LOVE seeds. Growing is our thing. But in the winter, giving and getting plants is not that practical so here are some ideas of some things we might enjoy for Christmas 2009. Just copy and paste this link and send it to your secret Santa, or grab bagger or loved one. The 2009 Rooftop (or ground) Gardener’s Christmas Wish List.
Notice the top item on the list is to donate to a worthy cause. My cause is in honor of a good friend of my husband’s who has walked the Appalachian Trail. You can donate to many excellent plant and tree causes in honor of your favorite rooftop gardener. They will truly love it!
Appalachians - A Stunning Landscape You can help protect one of the world's most beautiful and diverse habitats when you Adopt an Acre® today.
A huge thank you to Jean-Claude Goldenstein for his efforts with the CRE portal CreoPoint. Jean-Claude is bringing the world of CRE together in one place. He has even brought our greening efforts together, which is so very necessary. Good news, like the world’s largest green wall is hard to come by and thanks to CreoPoint it is here for the PM / FM industry to embrace and understand.
The concept of green walls is as outstanding as its sibling, green roofs. It is simply a fascination for so many folks, but it is truly proving to be more than that. It is becoming a standard to achieve. A hallmark of excellence, if you will. The ingenious of this concept is that it is a sign, but it is a green sign. How can you argue with the beauty of a green sign? The sign industry better watch out because this will definitely catch on and bring life and green to the cold, hard-to-soften high-rise or skyscraper.
Kudos to Green Living Technologies and the PNC on this project. Now I just have to get them to list the project on the Rooftop Garden World database!!
Although most of us do not think of moss when we think of traditional roof garden plants, maybe you should if you have the right conditions. Every day someone sends me an email or reaches out to me about their project and I learn something new.
Today my eyes were opened by Heidi Masucci, Operations Manager at Moss Acres. Moss Acres is experimenting with moss and rooftop applications. It is proving to be a worthwhile experiment so far. Of course, the use of moss is for mostly shady locations. The good news is for buildings that live in the shade of other buildings. Also, what I was surprised about was the fact that once established it is drought tolerant.
If you have a rooftop garden, living wall, green roof, or whatever living, planted surface or plane or you built it, designed it or installed the plants or grew the plants, you MUST be on this list. For ten years I have said that I will create a comprehensive list that includes all of the rooftop/green roof gardens in the world. If you love to photograph those gardens, what a great place to go to find out if there are any you may visit on your next vacation or business trip. Click this link to add your garden or wall: http://www.rooftopgarden.com/database
As far as bugs and dirt, and other outdoor stuff, none of those issues have ever concerned me when working with plants, seeds and just being in my various gardens. Nothing has scared me or bothered me. Sunscreen protects me from burning up and water keeps me hydrated. The one thing that never worried me was getting a bug bite. Until now.
It was a normal evening and my husband was helping me dig some holes to plant more plants (of course!) and I felt an odd feeling on my forehead. I asked my husband if there was a bug bite on my forehead. He looked at me and had a real scary look on his face. That was enough for me. I felt my head and it was enlarged and getting even larger as I felt it. I was bitten by something unknown and it was swelling rapidly. Our first thought was to get some allergy pills or something for allergies. As my head and face were swelling it got scarier. My eyes were swelling so much, my vision was becoming impaired.
While setting up the technical side of rooftopgarden.com, I was talking to a web guy and he had no idea what a rooftop garden was. He actually asked me, what is this company, rooftopgarden.com, what is a rooftop garden? It really hit me. Wow, I thought everyone really knew what a rooftop garden was. Then I realized, duh, no they don’t. That is the purpose of rooftopgarden.com. The entire reason I reserved the domain name 10 years ago was for that exact reason. Nobody really knew or understood what a rooftop garden was except for those in close circles with Mayor Daley, or the Department of Environment folks or my dear friend Bernice and my awesome husband John. Actually, I am kidding. There are many experts out there who have extensive knowledge of the subject. Hopefully you will get to meet some of those experts as they participate in this blog and the development of the rooftop garden database.
