Green roof
Four years ago we decided to create a green roof on top of our rammed earth Eco-Shed so we set about researching how to go about it - on a very tight budget. For starters, instead of using a butyl liner, we got hold of some regular builder’s plastic, saving us about a thousand pounds on our 66m2 ’grand piano’ shaped roof and then we then topped it with sub soil from a friend’s kitchen extension. He was going to have to pay to have it taken away, so Michael offered to take it off his hands for nothing!
Soil sifter
We processed it using a soil sifter before carrying it up onto the roof in 400 bucket loads, two at a time – all six tons of it (I remember we did this on my birthday – whoopee doo). The resulting depth was three to four inches all over – deeper would have been better but we were conscious of not overdoing it, weight-wise.
Sedum soft cuttings
We’d had a quote to cover it with sedum matting which came to over £3k so we paid a visit to a local garden centre where webought a couple of sedum ‘mother’ plants (Golden Acre and Alba). I lovingly took around 400 soft cuttings that she started off in the greenhouse and as soon as they were big enough transplanted them out into a nursery bed where the plants proceeded to thrive. Six months later they were on the roof and flourishing! 
Over the months I went on to gather more sedum bits and bobs from various sources – including a neighbour’s gravel driveway… and for a bit of variety and to attract a wider range of wildlife we also planted clover, wild flowers and thyme – all of which took longer to get established and demanded more attention. The thyme soon struggled and died but two years later the clover is doing particularly well and is flowering it’s socks off. I bought the seed on line where it was actually advertised for use as a green manure.
Most recently I have planted over a hundred Lampranthus plants (as with the sedum, grown from soft cuttings taken from one mother plant which was in turn grown from a soft cutting) around the perimeter and these are now in full flower. They can be seen from ground level peeping over the edge, their bright pink daisy type flowers almost sparkling in the sunshine.
Skull-pture
Quite a talking point are a couple of old horses skulls up there (each with a neat bullet hole in the top) that we salvaged whilst cleaning out a redundant cess pit in the garden which we now use for rainwater harvesting. Along with some gnarly
decaying logs and a ‘bee hotel’, I have used them to create a ‘skull-pture’ which provides the perfect habitat for all sorts of mini beasts!
About Bridget Elahcene
Up until five years ago I had no experience of growing vegetables other than encouraging my young children at the time to take an interest in GYO for a couple of years – mainly in an effort to get them out of the house and into the fresh air.
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This looks wonderful. I would like to see an image of what it looks like from the ground. It is on a concrete/brick building?
Until this year nothing could be seen from ground level so in the spring I planted lampranthus all the way round the perimeter and I am pleased to say their bright pink daisylike flowers can now be seen peeping over the top. I will try to get a picture and post it on SowandSo for you to see. As they establish and grow bigger I will encourage them to dangle over the edge – maybe next year… By the way our green roof tops our rammed earth ‘eco- shed’ – so not bricks OR concrete!
That’s really interesting. I, too, would like to see a picture of the building with the green roof.
Thanks for your comment – I will get some pics as soon as it stops raining and post them for you to see. Check out http://www.rammed-earth.org to see how we built the green roof – and the Eco-shed which it crowns…
It’s easy to think of a green roof as just a practical and ecological way of covering a structure, I’m glad you brought up the concept that it is a way to extend your gardening space and create a fun growing project at the same time. Sounds like yours is a work of art.
Thank you for your comment. Yes it has and continues to be) an interesting project. I never intended it to be a roof garden as such and designed it to be low maintenance, mainly because I’ve got more than enough gardening to get on with at ground level. It’s been very rewarding and looks a picture from our guest room window. I wish more people would consider having a green roof, however small, especially in urban areas.
This is quite the project. Glad to hear your hard work has been worth it.
It was a big job – it took five or six metric tonnes of sieved soil to cover the roof to an average depth of 4″which all had to be carried up in buckets! It has been a very interesting project and I would recommend it to anyone.
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