Hope for the Healing Planet exhibit Chicago Flower & Garden Show 2009. Click for larger view.
If you visited the Chicago Flower & Garden Show 2009 and walked the Hope for the Healing Planet exhibit of the Chicago Botanic Garden you got a preview of the green roof at the Botanic Garden's Rice Plant Conservation and Science Center that opens next month.
The goal of the 16,000 square-foot-rooftop evaluation garden is to try to broaden the selection of plants that can be grown on green roofs. Richard Hawke, the Garden's Plant Evaluation Manager, and his team selected plants that naturally grow in harsh environments-- low rain fall, shallow soil depth, hot and dry conditions-- for the trial gardens. In the coming years the Chicago Botanic Garden will share results of the evaluations through papers, but will also share information with home gardeners, through the Botanic Garden's blog, of the results.
The Chicago Botanic Garden is currently posting videos to YouTube that contain good information for gardeners who are interested in green roofs.
A tour of the installation of the Green Roof Garden at the new Plant Science Center at the Chicago Botanic Garden. The raised beds and growing media are going in.
In this video they have started planting the raised beds with succulents. In the South Roof, everything there is native, notice the Opuntia, an edible cactus I blogged about. They focused on alpine species and shallow rooted plants because shallowest
area has only 4" of soil, the deepest being 8 inches.
Here Richard Hawke talks about the plants chosen for the green roof and his hopes that the tests conducted will be of use to green roof growers around the world.
No prob. I'm told tomorrow they're sending out a press kit about it and I'll update if they have more info. I forgot that the CBG gave me the plant list, I should add it to this post.
4 Comments
ssgardengirl.com said:
Thanks for posting these videos! It looks like a very cool project, and one more good reason to get back to the Garden this fall.
Mr. Brown Thumb said:
No prob. I'm told tomorrow they're sending out a press kit about it and I'll update if they have more info. I forgot that the CBG gave me the plant list, I should add it to this post.
GartenGrl said:
I love this! I think they should cover parking lot's with green roofs, or with solar power collecting roofs!
Mr. Brown Thumb said:
You reminded me I wanted to share a pic from a Twitter friend of a doghouse with a green roof.
http://twitpic.com/an7ed
I think it is an awesome idea.
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