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Ideas for rooftop garden


15 Rooftop Garden Design Ideas and Tips

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Whether you have a rooftop garden already or you are planning to have one, these

Rooftop Garden Design Ideas will come in handy!

In densely populated urban areas of the cities, having a small rooftop or patio is such a boon! If you want to utilize the space wisely, then take help from these Rooftop Garden Design Ideas!

Here are the best container vegetables for a Rooftop Garden

Rooftop Garden Design Ideas and Tips

We have some great terrace garden design ideas and essential tips that you can use for inspiration on your rooftop.

1. Keep it Open

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A small rooftop looks big if you are not going to fill it with a lot many things. A transparent glass instead of a parapet wall, fences, or railing will be great!

2. Create Some Privacy

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If you have an open terrace, then growing climbing plants for privacy would be a great idea. Clematis, Climbing roses, and English Ivy are some of the best options you have! You can also use a bamboo screen, drapes or set up a wooden frame.

3. Grow Tall Plants and Trees

If you have a large rooftop, you can plant tall trees and shrubs to utilize the space to the fullest. Growing bamboos and grasses is a good combination if you want to make it low maintenance.

4. Create Raised Beds

Creating raised beds adjacent to the roof walls is a good idea. You can add wooden raised beds or ones that are made from metal. If you like, you can also construct concrete raised beds and grow tall shrubs and small trees in them.

Ensure you use a waterproofing membrane and lay a thick barrier that can block roots and prevent damage to the roof. One more idea is to make slightly elevated raised beds from the surface. That way, the roots of the plants may not be able to penetrate.

5. Plant Carefully

When it comes to rooftop garden design, ensure you maintain the diversity in the size of the plants. A few large plants, shrubs, and small trees, ground covers, annuals must be there. Also, buy containers of different sizes, as this will give a great look to your rooftop garden.

6. Add Furniture

Decide in advance what kind of furniture you would like to purchase. Would you like to lounge on the roof terrace or want to have dinner there? You must make a choice in the initial stage. Furniture that fits the style and theme of your roof garden would be more appropriate.

7. Add a Focal Point

Anything can be a focal point that draws attention. A water feature, tall tree, a beautiful arrangement of container plants, or simply a statue would be a great addition to the roof garden.

8. Introduce Lights

It is important that your rooftop garden is well-lit during the evening, especially near the stairwell or door. Moreover, lighting a roof will make it look larger during dusk.

9. Use No More than Three Colors

Always choose one color as an accent shade and one or two more hues that follow. Using several different colors for walls, floor, railings, furniture, or containers can make your rooftop look too busy and cluttered.

A color combined with a neutral color works best. Neutral colors like white, gray, beige, indigo also accentuate the beauty of plants.

10. Utilize the Vertical Space

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Utilize vertical space to add more appeal to your rooftop garden. Hang planters on the walls, use railing planters, and grow a lot of climbers.

11. Nice Floor is Important

Don’t avoid the flooring. Choose a type that fits your budget, suits the climate you live in, and accommodates the theme of the rooftop garden.

12. Play with Colors and Plant Types

Use cool and warm colors in balance to get a beautiful look. On a well-planned urban rooftop garden, everything is possible! Grow trees, shrubs, foliage plants, and annuals for a burst of different shades!

13. Rooftop Sitting Area

A rooftop barbeque, bar, or a mini kitchen along with some plants would be a great place to throw mini parties. You can have a lovely weekend right at your terrace that way!

14. A Mini Pool

A mini pool on the terrace surrounded by lush green tropical plants is a dream for many. If you don’t have a big terrace, then you can make a mini pool and add plants in containers.

15. Become a Rooftop Homesteader

A rooftop is a great place to grow fruits, vegetables, herbs, and salads of your choice. Become a rooftop homesteader and grow your own food with ease.

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Create a Lush Rooftop Terrace With These 9 Design Tricks

Presented by the National Association of Landscape Professionals in partnership with  

By Lauren Dunec Hoang

With a few clever strategies, such as expanding planting, screening adjacent buildings and maximizing outdoor living space, rooftop terraces can feel larger and more secluded than they really are. Let’s take a look at rooftop gardens, perched in cities from San Francisco to Paris, that offer design ideas to make the most of an elevated urban terrace.

 

Photo by CKA PARIS

 

1. Treat your rooftop like an outdoor living room. This stylish indoor-outdoor Parisian rooftop terrace has all the trappings and comforts of a living room inside the house, such as cushy furniture, wall art and lighting. For your own terrace, try seeing the space as though it were a room inside, and imagine how you would arrange it — likely more lavishly than a room outdoors.

While not all decor makes sense outside, investing in comfortable outdoor furniture and adding details such as an outdoor rug, potted plants, a shade structure or umbrella, and lighting will make the space all the more inviting.

 

Photo by The Garden Trellis Company

 

2. Grow a green screen. To make your rooftop feel more like a secluded garden retreat and less like a fishbowl, invest in screens, fences and planters, and grow vines and shrubs to block views of adjacent buildings. In this London terrace the designer used a wooden lattice fence to provide support for a leafy screen of confederate jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides; USDA Zone 8; find your zone), screening nearby buildings and perfuming the terrace with a citrusy-sweet fragrance.

Go a step further and cover an area of the rooftop with a pergola or shade sail. You’ll benefit from both the shade and the added sense of privacy from neighbors’ windows.

3. Add softness. Make a rooftop of any size seem more inviting by arranging a scattering of brightly colored weatherproof pillows and laying down outdoor rugs to soften the floor. The informal setup would encourage you and your family or friends to use the terrace as a summer hangout.

 

Photo by The Garden Builders

 

4. Carve out curves. Adding curves can help tone down the feeling of being surrounded by hard-edged man-made structures and make a rooftop terrace feel more like a garden. In this rooftop in London’s Marylebone area, for example, the designer created curves through multiple methods. A custom curved bench snakes around a round outdoor table, forming an inviting seating area and defining the edge of the planting bed. The metal fountain is also in a loose S-curve shape rather than a more common vertical plane. While not a curve, per se, the decking set at a diagonal also visually breaks up the boxy space formed by the surrounding buildings.

Growing tips: Set your plants about 1½ feet apart in the garden or add them to containers after the hot weather cools; lightly fertilize throughout the garden season. If you're planting them in the garden, choose a new spot each year, as soil diseases can be a problem. As a plus, while these are “flowering” varieties, their leaves are edible.

5. Set plants up for success. Lush vines, leafy shrubs, swaying grasses and colorful flowers all help transform an urban terrace into a calming oasis. For plants to thrive on a rooftop terrace, they’ll need the right light exposure and adequate soil and water. Invest in built-in planters or medium to large containers that won’t dry out quickly. Ideally, hook up a drip irrigation system.

Vines and tall, skinny plants, such as arborvitae, and large ornamental grasses (pictured in this Manhattan rooftop) offer a good bang for your buck in terms of providing lots of green while only taking up a little floor space.

 

Photo by New Eco Landscapes

 

City terrace gardens often have an “urban canyon” light exposure, where plants are either in the deep shade cast by buildings or in full, blaring sun. Hanging a shade sail that still allows light to penetrate, like this one partially covering the Manhattan rooftop garden, creates a more consistent growing environment for plants and a more comfortably shaded hangout spot for people.

 

Photo by L'esprit au vert

 

6. Make room for your top priorities. Whether your main objective is creating a spot for outdoor entertaining or a tranquil, private retreat (or both), design your rooftop terrace to support how you’d like to use the space.

This playful rooftop in Paris, for example, includes a couple of distinct seating areas, each with a different intended use. A lounge chair on the upper level would be a great spot for solo relaxing, while a trio of chairs could be used to host a small group.

 

Photo by Prassas Landscape Studio LLC

 

7. Bring a bit of wildness. Welcome native birds, bees and butterflies to your rooftop by hanging a feeder, adding a water source and choosing plants that provide food or nest-building materials.

In contrast to the concrete landscape of the city, one could imagine this Chicago rooftop would look like an oasis to our feathered friends and beneficial insects. The rooftop includes a fresh water source and deep plantings of pollinator and seed-eater favorites, including black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia sp. ), purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea, zones 3 to 9), ‘Autumn Joy’ stonecrop (Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’, zones 3 to 10), lavender and salvia.

 

Photo by STEPHEN FLETCHER ARCHITECTS

 

8. Go vertical. Take advantage of the walls bordering a rooftop terrace to provide support for vines or offer a backdrop for outdoor wall art.

This London rooftop makes use of a brick wall for mounting an Asian-style wood screen and a set of carved wooden doors, as well as a wire trellis for a rambling confederate jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides; USDA Zone 8) vine. The vertical features add depth to the terrace without taking up any floor space.

 

Photo by Living Green Design

 

Conversely, install a living wall for vertical interest and expanded planting space. For example, this rooftop garden atop Anchor Distillery in San Francisco features four vertical panels planted with strawberries, basil, lavender, rosemary and scented geraniums.

 

Photo by Reveal Design LLC

 

9. Create evening ambiance. Extend the hours of enjoyment of your rooftop terrace by installing outdoor landscape lighting or simply hanging a few crisscrossing strands of cafe lights. This city roof terrace in Chicago makes use of a combination of lights on the birch trees to provide soft washes of light and downcast spotlights beneath the cedar pergola to illuminate the seating areas.

 

 

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Contents:

  1. Pros and cons of a roof garden
  2. Roof garden and its varieties
  3. Creating a roof garden and choosing plants

In today's world, everyone strives to create comfortable living conditions surrounding yourself with something beautiful. Flowers not only attract with their appearance, but also create a special atmosphere, enliven the space. Of course, it is customary to place them in a flower bed near the house, but if you live in an apartment building, then you do not have such an opportunity. Moreover, in small areas, a place for a garden is also not always possible to find, but there is a way out - the arrangement of a garden on the roof. This idea has become so popular that it is used as an original way of landscaping, both in the city and beyond. What types of garden are there, how to create it yourself on the roof of your house? More on this later.

Pros and cons of a roof garden

First of all, it is worth mentioning the negative aspects, because the only disadvantage of a roof garden is the fact that it is extremely difficult to arrange it yourself. In most cases, you have to contact special companies, where experienced builders and architects will help you think over the landscape design correctly, and then bring it to life.

But as for the advantages of a roof garden, it is worth noting here:

Roof garden and its varieties

Depending on the type of roof landscaping, the garden can be:

In the first case, the structure is located on lightweight soil, the thickness of which is no more than 15 centimeters. Such a garden will protect the roof surface from external factors and create an autonomous ecosystem. To create an extensive roof garden, you need to choose unpretentious plants, such as evergreens. It will not be possible to equip a recreation area here, since this method of landscaping is usually used on the roofs of outbuildings, gazebos and small private houses.

The Intensive Garden is a full size garden with walking paths and a seating area. Moreover, it assumes the presence of a fountain and other reservoirs, therefore, it is necessary to create a solid foundation that can withstand the ground cover, the thickness of which is 1.5-2 meters. Of course, such a garden is better suited for apartment buildings and hotels, but it can also be arranged on the roof of a private house. As for the structure of the roof, depending on it, the garden can be:

Creating a roof garden and choosing plants

As mentioned earlier, the technological process of arranging a roof garden is extremely complex and is best left to specialists. Despite this, it is important to know the features of creating a garden so that you can take an active part in ennobling the roof or control the process of its arrangement. Stages of work:

Creating a solid foundation for your roof garden is an important step, but just as important is the choice of plants. To improve the surface, you need to choose unpretentious plants that are quietly adjacent to each other. In addition, on the roof, the plants are in windy and sunny conditions, and the ground is thin and freezes quickly in winter. As a result, the requirements for choosing a plant for a roof garden are as follows:

At the moment, experts identify about 60 types of plants that can be used on the roof. For example, you can use some types of stonecrop, grassy type plants. Exotic plants will not take root here, but deciduous shrubs and dwarf conifers do. You can supplement the space with a small artificial pond, which will create not just a garden, but a real recreation area where you can be alone with nature.

Roof gardens (+30 photos) Advantages of a Green Roof

Contents of the article is Queen Amitis. A multi-stage pyramidal structure rose to the sky with luxurious greenery of trees, shrubs, iridescent radiance of exotic flowers. Stone platforms fertilized with fertile soil represented a rather complex structure with a water irrigation system, fountains and cascades. The wonderful Babylonian gardens on the roof - proof of the touching love of Tsar New Chadnezzar II - have become for humanity an unproven, but a vivid example of the almighty engineering and design thought. In the modern world, a corner of wildlife on the roof is gaining its fashionable popularity. But for the majority, this is a spiritual and physical need for silence, solitude among natural lines, colors, smells.

The most famous rooftop gardens

Not only ancient Babylon became famous for its "green" ideas. In many Scandinavian countries, birch bark roofs covered with magnificent turf have been an integral part of the landscape since the Middle Ages. The tradition is not going to die: every year the Scandinavian Green Roof Association chooses the best project.

The temperamental Renaissance Italy, immersed in the sun, continued the idea of ​​unusual gardening. One of the Medici villas - "Fiesole" (villa "Belcanto") - in the vicinity of Florence stood out not only for its "panoramic" view, but also for its multi-level garden on high stone terraces. The green islands of bliss and coolness have long been loved by the Italian people as a practical, original technique.

In Russia, a roof garden has been around since the 17th century. Initially, these were attempts to ennoble the outbuildings of the courtyard: barns, warehouses and cellars. Such "creativity" was available to eminent persons, and later to wealthy merchants. In the residences of Russian emperors and empresses, in the houses of the wealthy nobility, oases were equipped, investing large sums of money in projects of "hanging gardens". So, in the Small Hermitage, the center of Catherine II's "graceful leisure", a real open garden was created at the level of the second floor with walking paths, trees, flowers and even running overseas animals. Much later, it will be covered with a glass roof, turning it into a winter garden.

An acute shortage of nature in large cities forces architects and landscape designers to join forces, creating unique structures on the top of buildings. A marvel of artistic thought is the rooftop garden of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore. The architect's idea is a giant gondola, standing on a hotel complex of three high-rise buildings. Green spaces, walking paths, swimming pools, places for recreation - amaze the most sophisticated tourists.

A real masterpiece, born in the confluence of nature and architecture - the terraced park of the Namba shopping complex in Japan. Stylized islands of natural landscapes, stone compositions, waterfalls, streams and small ponds occupy the height of an eight-story building. An amazing building in the Russian capital that attracts attention is the Moscow International House of Music. The project of the building includes a small winter garden on the roof with exotic greenhouse plants, smoothly turning into an open area with several green areas and walking paths.

If we talk about the prevalence of green gardens on the upper areas of our buildings, then today these are separate, infrequent developments. Good prerequisites for the development of this direction in Russia undoubtedly exist.

Practicality of roof gardens

The beauty and unusualness of roof gardens breaks all records. But there is another reason, which lies not only in the aesthetic aspect of home design. A green roof is more durable because the plants absorb water very well. In addition, in the summer it is an opportunity not to languish from the heat, and in winter it is an opportunity to save heating costs. However, not all roofs of large urban buildings are able to withstand the load of "intensive" gardens, the soil depth of which reaches two meters. Such eco-islands under the very sky involve paths, ponds, swimming pools, alpine slides, light landscape architecture buildings and a number of serious preparatory works involving specialists.

"Extensive" gardens are easier to arrange and prepare, located on flat or pitched roofs of private houses, gazebos, sheds. Such green carpets from the most unpretentious plants are only an external decor, not assuming that they will be walked on. One of the main difficulties of creating a rooftop garden is its price. Engaging builders, landscape designers, architects and other professionals is quite expensive.

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