Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens
Healthy Gardens. Healthy Planet
When we design a Green Roof with native plants one of our project objectives almost always includes ‘year round color interest”. Hopeless naive I am when it comes to believing the solution to ADHD lies somewhere not so hidden in the color, texture and hues of Green Roof wildflowers. Of course there are many governmental [...]
Florida Green Roof, Extensive, Rooftop Permaculture Ever thought about helping save the planet’s wildlife from extinction? Installing a windowsill box, green roof or living wall can help. Many species are dependent on the amount of greenery growing up above the ground for survival. Species like the green Florida anole, Anolis carolinensis are being pushed towards [...]
There are many, many reasons to construct a green roof, including; Cleaning Stormwater Reducing Heat Island Effect Creating Sense of Place Providing Habitat for Urban Core Wildlife Preserving Biodiversity Sequestering Carbon Producing Oxygen, and more. There are many other, less expensive roofing technologies capable of; Cleaning Stormwater, and Reducing Heat Island Effect However, besides Green [...]
Ruairi, my lanky teenage son with blue braces and I decide to plant flats of Allium canadense on one of my favorite living roofs tonight. I set out promptly planting while Ruairi totes numerous trays up the winding spiral stairwell, both of us focusing on the unhealthy sub sandwich we are going to eat after [...]
Florida’s coastal sand dunes provide a wonderful opportunity to study native plants who may be suited for green roofs in hot, dry and windy climates. We will be working with the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens on a spectacular native plant green roof soon, I need some fresh, new plant perspectives and know where to go [...]
Many folk have an opinion as to what a native plant is. As a botanist and a lawyer by education, I typically use Aristotelian logic/reasoning to satisfy myself when answering a question. My world view is centered around the classical world. But I am trying to shake that up a bit. Get rid of the [...]
July is always killer in the Florida garden. July is double killer on Florida Green Roofs. So I was breaking into a sweat, not so much from the heat but from the humidity this morning on the Breaking Ground (BGC) Green Roof as we worked with nine next generation Green Roof youths, studying the importance [...]
The original topic for June’s post centered around a discussion of the definition of a native plant. The topic may have been visited and revisited until it can be thought of as old news, yet on a recent Caribbean island green roof project I was asked to look at using primarily native plants. Natives were [...]
We are almost finished with the initial wave of plantings on the Jacksonville, Florida’s Breaking Ground Contracting Green Roof. Our focus was multifold. Working with the Breaking Ground team, Catherine Burkee, Mary Tappouni and others, we developed a Mission Statement for the Green Roof project. The Mission Statement for the Living Roof defines Breaking Ground [...]
The moon is waxing and still low in the sky over Jacksonville, as Fox 30 news prepares to broadcast from the Breaking Ground Contracting Living Garden Roof this morning. Traffic is starting to build on the adjacent I-10 and the air is thick with humidity, a sign we may finally see brief some rain after [...]
