Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls

About this book

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 Noel 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.

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Biography

Noel Kingsbury is a leading expert in contemporary naturalistic planting design. He contributes regularly to Hortus, Homes and Gardens, The English Garden, and the Royal Horticultural Society's magazine, The Garden. He occasionally writes pieces for other magazines and newspapers including Financial Times and Country Life. Noel lectures regularly in the United States at places such as the Seattle Flower Show, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, and the Rochester Civic Garden Center.Noel is a well-known writer on plants and gardens. He has always been firmly in the vanguard of new developments, playing a major role in popularizing a more naturalistic and sustainable planting style.He wrote Designing with Plants with designer Piet Oudolf and is associated with the Landscape Department at the University of Sheffield as part of his active involvement in promoting quality planting in public spaces. A lover of wild spaces and wildflowers growing in their natural environment, Noel emphasizes growing gardens in a way that expresses this passion. He is especially fond of the way plants group naturally when left to their own devices. Noel loves discovering good examples of large-scale, natural-style gardens or plantings that clearly evoke nature. He is pleased to be part of the naturalistic planting movement and believes that "Gardening for myself and for a lot of people is an opportunity to be close to nature." Nigel Dunnett is a senior lecturer in the Department of Landscape at the University of Sheffield where he has developed innovative research programs into naturalistic and ecologically-informed planting for gardens and public landscapes. He writes regularly for leading horticultural magazines and journals and lectures widely throughout the U.K. He lives in Sheffield.