When choosing plants for a green roof they need to be able to withstand wind and frost be drought resistant tolerate living in poor soil and be maintenance free.
The green roof with the greatest plant diversity.
Planted and or seeded with a wide range of wildflowers sedums can be added too by applying these principles many interesting native invertebrate species will take up residence on green roofs.
The most species rich green roofs usually feature lower plant diversity than natural ecosystems.
What is a green roof.
To display the best plants for green roofs and to trial untested plants for their adaptability to this environment.
A diverse stable and resilient roof.
Also diversity makes the roof more resilient to pests.
We exploratively studied the vegetation on a dutch green roof in 50 permanent plots 1 m2 over eight years 2012 2019 following roof construction.
While the greater substrate depth of intensive roofs can provide improved plant growth and support a greater diversity of plants these roofs have more structural requirements and greater up front construction costs as well as higher maintenance costs as compared to extensive green roofs.
Green roofs can promote biodiversity in urban areas.
Fol lowing an initial five year evaluation phase new trials of uncommon and or untested plants will continually cycle into the green roof gardens.
The most common type of extensive shallow substrate green roof features species mixtures of succulents mainly from the genus sedum.
Constructed ecosystems such as green roofs often contain monocultures or low diversity plant communities but adding more plant species to these systems can increase ecosystem service provisioning.
Green roof plants should also be attractive and offer food and shelter for wildlife.
Without plant diversity the roof is unable to buffer for environmental changes.
The extent to which green roofs stimulate plant diversity can depend on roof characteristics such as roof age substrate depth and shading.
A varied substrate depth.
Mixture advantage when species rich treatments outperform the best monocultures is desirable in constructed ecosystems due to the cost of.
With all this in mind here are ten of the best green roof plants to choose from.
Wildflower green roofs are especially good for pollinators such as.
Green roofs rooftops that have been purposefully vegetated oberndorfer et al 2007 either with low growing sedum plants wildflowers grasses or shrubs and trees are an emerging green technology that is becoming increasingly popular in urban environments due to the many benefits they provide one such benefit is their potential to restore biodiversity in urban landscapes.
New green roofs should be watered until the plants are established and it is important to weed green roofs several times a year to keep the plants healthy.
Higher multifunctionality may require much greater species richness isbell et al.
The ultimate goal of the trial is to develop a diverse and extensive list of.
