Edible roof gardens
Roof gardens are beautiful,
inspiring and offer a host of benefits. They can:
- be a great place to grow food. See links to examples below.
- absorb water, helping to
mitigate and manage urban flooding, and make our increasingly hot
cities that bit cooler;
- provide green oases for people, plants and
wildlife;
- improve air quality;
- insulate building occupants from
heat and sound;
- extend the life of roofing materials by preventing rapid
and excessive cooling and heating, and protecting materials from
harmful ultraviolet light;
- reduce energy bills by
cooling the building in summer and providing insulation in the winter.
London's Mayor Boris Johnson
is promoting roof gardens as part of
London's climate change adaptation plan. With the
appointment of Rosie Boycottas the mayor's food advisor, who has also expressed a keen interest
in edible roof gardens, there are now exciting opportunities for greening London's many roof spaces.
See the links on
Sustain's 'Edible Roof Gardens' pages for more information, and to see pictures of inspiring roof gardens around the UK and abroad. See also the
Links page for specialist roof garden organisations
Global Generation and
LivingRoofs.org.
