LIVING ROOF

[Lisa Marie Claire]

Does anyone have a sedum roof or any other kind of living roof?(voluntarily!)

[Maggi Young]

Lisa, there was some great stuff about living rof gardens in the old florum... mainly on sheds, I think, but same principle for a garge...I'm just off to search to see if I can find the pages. Funny thing is, Ian and I are thinking about making a false, sloped living roof for one of our sheds to divert attention from the truly hideous extension our neighbours are having built!! There is a great item somewhere, maybe in a magazine,( latest issue of RHS, The Garden?) about a French guy who specialises in planting living buildings... whole facades planted, really fabulous!

[Maggi Young]

Found this exchange, for a start:
Frazer Henderson (Hylotelephium)
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Post Number: 8
Registered: 10-2005

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 Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 10:30 pm:       

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Tecticulous Flora

There is a great little booklet produced as a consequence of an 8 year survey of rooves in England, though its findings are pertinent to Scotland. Over 135 varieites of vascular plants were recorded. The review also contains data on wall, gutter and pillbox flora. Extensive references are supplied.

£3 incl P&p payable to R M Payne from R M Payne Applegate, Thieves Bridge Road, Watlington, PH33 0HL

 
John Latusek (Breconeer)
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Post Number: 8
Registered: 7-2006

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 Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 11:28 pm:       

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I hadn't heard that term 'tecticolous' before, but having googled an RM Payne report published by English Nature http://www.livingroofs.org/NewFiles/Tecticolous%20 Insects.pdf I see the word is one of Ron Payne's own inventions:



"...In a very interesting booklet on roof plants in East Anglia, (Payne, 2000) the author struggled to find a suitable technical term to denote roof-dwelling plants. With the help of a colleague, P.Oswald, he coined the term ‘tecticolous’ (from the Latin tectum — a roof) analogous to the similar terms rupestral for rock-growing plants and viatical for road-growing species. I have adopted this term and its derivative ‘tecticole’ for invertebrates living on roofs..."

 

[Maggi Young]

See here for some stuff:
http://www.srgc.org.uk/discus/messages/4/1318.html#POST4474

[Maggi Young]

You can get the sedum rolls and also plug plants to add variety, i think. I believe it would be worth trying all sorts of stuff... we're going to, when we finally get time to contruct it! It won't be on the actual roof, because we want it at an angle for optimum viewing of the roof garden!

[Lisa Marie Claire]

http://www.bostonseeds.co.uk/about_sc.htm
http://www.livingroofs.org/
I would love to have the face done as well but i dont see info on that and i have heard its alot more work to keep!
I was wondering how many types of sedum there are and it seems there are heaps!

[Lisa Marie Claire]

well i have changed the design of our garage by turning the roof round so the long gradual slope is in front of us so we can see the roof now that we are not going for boring corrugated roof!

[Maggi Young]

Good idea... our shed is "going the wrong way", so to speak!
Great links, Lisa, to these suppliers and info. There are hundreds os different forms of Sedum , so even if you go for a base ofthe ready-made sedum carpeting you can still add all sorts of other types, colours, etc. to liven things up a bit! We need a new roof on our kitchen  dining area and we have been researching a "new" ( well, in the last thirty years, I think!!) material which is said to be better than roofing felt etc. and is ideal as a base for living roof gardens, it seems. Can't recall the name meantime, but Ian will have a leaflet somewhere.

[Lisa Marie Claire]

we must meet up soon! call me later in the week or next week!

[Maggi Young]

Will do! M