Green roofs are popping up all around the country. The benefits of these roof top gardens are widely recognized: turning an impervious surface into a pervious one; reducing energy costs; improving air quality; reducing the urban heat island effect; the list goes on. Despite the need for additional engineering work and sometimes added upfront building costs, this best management practice is really catching on. Cities like Chicago have hundreds of green roofs, and even small communities like Webster and Friendswood Texas can brag about a green roof in their town.
As the idea of roof top gardens spreads, new ideas continue to pop up. One of the coolest in my opinion is making the roof top into an actual garden; an edible garden; growing food on your roof.
All of the folks that I can find who have created roof top vegetable gardens are using commercial spaces or multi-family dwellings. Mostly because they are larger, typically have flat roofs and more accessible. They also offer opportunities for gardening in urban areas where real estate is at a premium and on the ground space is difficult to come by, it’s the idea of growing up, not out, applied to gardens.
Click on the photos below to check out some projects where roofs are producing food and improving water quality, not just keeping us warm and dry.
Higher Ground Farm boasts of being Boston’s first rooftop farm
The Botanical Research Institute of Texas has a more traditional green roof but harvested prickly pear fruit to make jelly
Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in Brooklyn
Royal York Hotel Rooftop Garden in Toronto has taken the local food movement to heart
Steven Mikulencak
Charriss York
Watershed Texas 