The Green Roof With The Greatest Plant Diversity

The extent to which green roofs stimulate plant diversity can depend on roof characteristics such as roof age substrate depth and shading.

The green roof with the greatest plant diversity. The most common type of extensive shallow substrate green roof features species mixtures of succulents mainly from the genus sedum. Sedums are one of the star plants for creating a green roof and a sedum roof needs no extra growing medium. We exploratively studied the vegetation on a dutch green roof in 50 permanent plots 1 m2 over eight years 2012 2019 following roof construction. In green roof plants ed and lucie snodgrass succinctly describe the ideal traits for a good green roof plant the most successful green roof plants are low growing shallow rooted perennial plants that are heat cold sun wind drought salt insect and disease tol erant.

It can be assumed that green roofs with higher plant diversity provide more valuable habitats for invertebrates such as pollinators williams et al 2014. Many common garden plants will not sur vive on a green roof. 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. As well as affording excellent ground cover this hardy easy to maintain plant grows happily in a shallow layer of substrate minimising the amount of pressure it puts on a structure.

The combination of green roofs with photovoltaic pv panels has been proposed to provide synergistic benefits as the panel is cooled by the presence of the vegetation and thus produces more electricity while the solar panel enhances growing conditions for vegetation and increases abiotic heterogeneity resulting in higher plant diversity. The most effective substrate for plant biodiversity varied over time but admixes blends of two or more different aggregates performed particularly well in terms of both coverage and plant species richness. This study has shown that the establishment of perennial plants on green roofs is possible and that these plants can survive over two growing seasons. Green roofs can promote biodiversity in urban areas.

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 roofs are on the rise in cities according to kelly ksiazek mikenas ph d who has a newly minted doctorate degree from the chicago botanic garden and northwestern university s graduate program in plant biology and conservation. The most species rich green roofs usually feature lower plant diversity than natural ecosystems. Wildflower green roofs are especially good for pollinators such as bees.

Mixture advantage when species rich treatments outperform the best monocultures is desirable in constructed ecosystems due to the cost of increasing diversity. A good green roof designed for biodiversity should include.