Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls

(Revised and Updated Edition)

The green roof industry is booming and the technology changing fast as professionals respond to the unique challenges of each new implementation. In this comprehensively updated, fully revised edition of their authoritative reference, Nigel Dunnett and Noël Kingsbury reveal the very latest techniques, materials, and plants, and showcase some spectacular new case studies.

Planting on roofs and walls began in Europe but is now becoming popular all over the world as people become aware of their beneficial impact on the environment. Green roofs and walls reduce pollution and run-off, help insulate and reduce the maintenance needs of buildings, contribute to biodiversity, and provide food and habitats for wildlife. In addition to all this, they are attractive to look at and by greening up living environments enhance the quality of life of residents. In Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls the authors describe and illustrate the practical techniques required to design, implement and maintain a green roof or wall to the highest professional standards. They go on to explain how roofs may be modified to bear the weight of vegetation, discuss the different options for drainage layers and growing media, and list the plants suitable for different climates and environments.

This informative, up-to-the-minute reference will captivate professionals with its illuminating new findings, and encourage gardeners everywhere to consider the enormous benefits to be gained from planting on their roofs and walls.

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An excerpt from this book:

There is no doubt that roof greening has substantial and wide-ranging advantages over traditional roof surfaces. Until quite recently, however, it has been difficult to make strong arguments for their use outside of the German-speaking countries because most of the research into the performance of green roofs has been published in German. However, since the mid-1990s research has also been undertaken and published in North America and some of the German work has been published in English. Green roof research is now a well-established area of activity in many countries. In this chapter we explore the benefits of roof greening and, as much as possible, provide sound evidence for the various claims ...

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