How to Design a Roof Garden
The roof garden has a long history. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were really roof gardens, built over an arcaded palace in ascending terraces. On top of the arches, bundles of reeds and asphalt were laid and covered with brick tiles and thick sheets of lead to provide waterproofing for the decorated state rooms below. Water was raised up by pump. The whole thing was planted with flowering shrubs and trees such as larch, birch, cypress, cedar, acacia and mimosa.A roof garden can be one of the biggest luxuries of city life. It is a true extension of the indoor living space, offering spectacular views over rooftops with a feeling of light and space that you cannot normally get in the urban environment. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Check the regulations. I know that its tempting to start choosing plants and features for your roof oasis but before you begin stocking your lofty garden with plants, there are a number of practical difficulties you should be aware of. There may be regulations limiting or prohibiting screens or plants being visible from street level, so check with the local authority.
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Check the roof's structure. Before you begin stocking your lofty garden with plants, there are a number of practical difficulties you should be aware of. Most roofs have a limited load-bearing capacity and may not be able to support the extra weight of surfacing materials, soil, containers and so on. You may have to have the structure strengthened or you may have to keep pots and plants around the perimeter, close to the structural walls, where the roof is supported.
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Choose flooring materials. Often roofs have plain dark materials covering their surface.Decking is comparatively lightweight and therefore suitable for a flat roof. Timber tiles are available, which are easy to lay and convenient to carry upstairs. If you have enough space, you can add a raised area of decking to use as a table or for sunbathing.
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Consider building an outside room. High up spaces, open to the sky, can seem threatening, so the best idea is to try and create a room-like space with some sort of enclosure. If there is no low parapet or wall, you will certainly need to put something up anyway, simply from the point of view of safety. You can surround the garden with trellis to act as a psychological barrier and also to help filter the wind to a certain extent. You can plant this quite lightly with ivy or clematis for privacy and leave parts of it unplanted so as not to block the wider view. Keep in mind that the wind will be much stronger up higher up so make sure to secure any structures.
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Choose planters. Most flat roof spaces have some unfortunate built-in features such as a water tank or air-conditioning unit that you cannot get rid of. Portable timber planters of varying heights can be used to hide such eyesores. Fill them with lightweight, moisture retentive compost and plant them up with small trees to make an effective screen.
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Choose plants. If your roof space is open to the sky, it will probably be best to choose a few carefully placed sculptural plants that will thrive in difficult high-rise urban circumstances, or put containers around the perimeter, planted with wind-resistant shrubs and small trees. Cacti and succulents are sun lovers, and require the minimum of watering. If the temperature is too cold for them, use grasses, which do not need much maintenance and will look very attractive blowing in the wind. If the space is small and partly enclosed, you could create a bower of flowering shrubs and climbers with a few small conifers for height, variety and shade.
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Tips & Warnings
Roof top winds can be quite strong so make sure your structures and plants can withstand them.
- Photo Credit Public Domain
