How Does Your Garden Grow? On The Roof.

Leaving aesthetics aside, there are many reasons why you might like to think about having a living roof on your garden room. Our preferred roof plant material is sedum, a beautiful succulent that does so much more than just look good. It adds mass and thermal resistance, to enhance heat insulation during cold weather, but also provides a natural, evaporative cooling effect on hot days as the sun pulls liquid from the plants and the soil in which they grow.

If you happen to live in a noisy environment, a sedum roof will also act as a very effective, natural sound insulator and wherever your garden room is situated it’ll mop up a little bit of carbon dioxide.

A sedum roof will also reduce rainwater run-off, alleviating the pressure of heavy rainfall on drains and lessening the potential for flooding and the polluting impact of storm drain overflow. What is more, the rainfall that does run from the roof will have been naturally filtered by the sedum, removing many harmful pollutants and heavy metals. This high quality rainwater can then be collected and used either for internal purposes, such as flushing the toilet, or for watering your garden. Fortunately, you are unlikely to need to water your roof in all but the most severe of droughts, as sedum is a succulent and can survive up to a month without rain.

But perhaps the loveliest aspect of a living roof is that it attracts a wide variety of insects, especially bees, butterflies and ladybirds, which in turn support a great variety of birdlife.

And while thinking about the roof, you might like to consider installing a sun pipe or two to light up the spaces that you don’t want to be seen from the garden such as cupboards or, perhaps more importantly, the loo! These highly reflective tubes will literally pipe sunlight into dark spaces, with minimal loss of the high insulation values that are one of our core design features. Maybe you need an extra burst of brilliant natural sunlight on your work space, whether it be a desk for those working from home, an easel in your own art studio or the therapist’s healing chair or table. Let nature light up your work station.

Whatever the intended use for your Garden Escape, you can bask in natural light, looking out at the greenery and beauty of nature and smile as you listen to the birds and the bees feasting on your roof garden. Cool, huh?