Rooftop terrace gardens

15 Rooftop Garden Design Ideas and Tips

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

secretgardens.com.au

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

houzz

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

patio-scapes

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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9 Remarkable Rooftop Garden Designs Around the World

Gardens + Landscapes

Great architecture, transportive greenery, and some pretty incredible views

By Lindsey Mather

September 23, 2016

For city dwellers green space is hard to come by—at least when it’s on the ground level. Rooftop gardens and green roofs are the new backyards, as shown in the book Living Roofs (teNeues, $55). Author Ashley Penn, a landscape architect and Chartered Member of the United Kingdom’s Landscape Institute, catalogues the plants and materials used in 35 projects across the globe, from Austin, Texas, to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The benefits of a living roof don’t stop at the natural beauty it provides. “As well as additional living space, green roofs can add a whole host of other benefits, including increasing the value of properties, supporting biodiversity, filtering air pollution, and even mitigating stormwater runoff and alleviating overflow,” Penn writes. Whether you’d want to tackle a high-maintenance green roof, complete with large trees, or plant a small container garden, the resulting space can act as an additional outdoor room for all the al fresco lounging, dining, and entertaining you can fit into a summer season.

Photo: Nikolas Koenig Photography/Courtesy of HMWhite
Tribeca Penthouse Garden, New York City
Here a mountainlike timber bench emerges from a modular stone-and-lawn landscape, HMWhite’s ode to the architecture of the building. The stainless-steel hot tub, surrounded by prairie-like grasses, might just be the perfect spot to take in the Manhattan skyline.
Photo: Bilyana Dimitrova
East Village Rooftop Garden, New York City
The Empire State Building is visible from a certain angle on this roof, but a custom oak water feature and Japanese wisteria-covered pergola ensure that the Pulltab-designed space feels like a calming oasis away from it all.
Photo: JoeFletcher.com
Hilgard Garden, Berkeley, California
Mary Barensfeld Architecture’s modern take on a terraced garden, this cast concrete structure uses ramps, rather than steps, for climbing up and down the greenery. A mini ipe-wood terrace toward the top provides a bird’s-eye view of the reflecting pond in the center.
Photo: Matteo Carassale
Archilabo, Milan
This industrial fifth-floor terrace, one of three in the residence, by landscape architect Cristina Mazzucchelli, has galvanized steel drum planters and a concrete outdoor kitchen, softened by feathery grasses and perennial plants.

Photo: Matteo Carassale
Romolo Private Terrace, Milan
By using plants as walls, Mazzucchelli designed three distinct spaces—a dining area, large lounge, and cozy relaxation nook—in this open-layout terrace. Purple chairs pair perfectly with similarly hued Japanese maples, geraniums, and sedums.
Photo: JoeFletcher.com
Mill Valley Cabins, Mill Valley, California
While these two cabins almost blend into their environment, they deserve a closer look. On top of the lower one is a green roof designed by Feldman Architecture, Inc., which is studded with succulents that help intercept rushing rainwater.
Photo: Clive Nichols
Roof Terrace in Holland Park, London
Charlotte Row Garden Design framed this modern ipe-wood terrace with plants that have shallow roots, such as alliums and tulips, so the design wouldn’t be too heavy for the historic building to support.

Roof gardens: a new word in modern landscape design

The history of the roof garden goes back to before our era. The first ancient landscape ideas were the hanging gardens of Babylon and the green terraces of Caesar Augustus. The modern history of such landscaping begins in Iceland, where the roofs were covered with earth and planted with grass. The houses of the inhabitants of this island country resembled living corners, on the roofs of which greenery grows freely almost as in natural conditions. The first person to seriously plan gardens of this type was the famous French architect Le Corbusier. Back in the first half of the 20th century, he identified five principles of the new architecture. The second of them was as follows: "The roof garden will be the most beautiful part of the building, and this means the revival of green spaces in big cities." Despite centuries of experience, green roofs began to spread only in the 80s. The twentieth century, when technology and high-quality materials were invented. One of the most interesting and, perhaps, the most famous objects in this direction is the Hundertwasser House in Vienna.

A roof garden is not a luxury, but a means of landscaping

Today, almost everyone can afford to create a green roof. It is no longer a luxury, as it used to be. From an idea to its implementation is just a stone's throw away. The production of materials and the technology of green roofing is very well developed and allows you to create a delightful corner of nature on any roof. There are several types of green roofs:

- extensive green roof

is the simplest green roof option, with a small (6-12 cm) layer of substrate and plants that require minimal maintenance and grow in extreme conditions;

- semi-intensive green roof

is a garden with ground cover plants, different types of herbs, perennials and small shrubs. This type of green roof makes it possible to plan a variety of plantings and expands the range of exploitation of the territory;

- intensive green roof

is a type of green roof, which, depending on the thickness of the ceiling of the building, can have a substrate layer of up to two meters, which allows planting not only bushes, but also low-growing trees. This landscaping option is almost endless, it can only be limited by the budget or the lack of new ideas. A lawn, a flower bed, a terrace and even a jacuzzi - all this is quite possible on an intensive type roof.

In today's world, greening flat roofs has become extremely relevant both from an economic and environmental point of view. Why? Here are a few arguments:

✓ The roof garden has a property that is very relevant in our time - it insulates the building in winter and cools it in summer. Additionally reduces physical, chemical and biological stress. New green spaces appear in the settlements, maintaining and improving the ecological background of the territory. And these are additional opportunities for the conservation of flora and fauna and nature protection in the conditions of a modern city.

✓ Green roofs collect atmospheric precipitation, thereby reducing the load on the sewer, returning it to the natural circulation.

✓ Thanks to green roofs, the area of green spaces is increased in a small area. Such a garden can be created both on the roofs of high-rise buildings, and on terraces or roofs of private houses.

✓ A green roof increases the sound and heat insulation of buildings.

✓ Green rooftops absorb most of the harmful substances found in the urban environment, reducing the impact of urban pollution.

Garden on the third floor

Green roofs are very popular in Europe today. The world has seriously thought about environmental problems, especially in large metropolitan areas. People are constantly looking for ways to increase the area of green spaces in one way or another, improve the environment and save their health. It is better to tell about how exactly the greening of roofs takes place with an example. One of the clients of the green roof company, Mr. Rosner and his wife, dreamed of transforming the terrace of their new apartment in the center of the German city of Inglstadt. With the help of a landscape designer, it was possible to build a beautiful garden on the roof, in the open air, with real flower beds and plants in containers.

Garden on the roof of the house - project, materials

Modern possibilities of intensive gardening are so wide that they allow organizing full-fledged gardens on the roofs of buildings. Such gardens may include shrubs and even trees, landscape compositions, covered areas (greenhouses, greenhouses) and much more. This is a full-fledged green area for relaxation and pleasant pastime, hidden from prying eyes and made without using a piece of land as such.

How is a roof garden created?

To ensure the full life of plants, bushes and trees on the surface of the house, a multilayer "pie" is created. It is important to note that the implementation of such a complex project is only possible on flat roofs or roofs with a slope of up to 5 degrees. For a roof garden, a sufficiently wide soil layer is required, which is very difficult to prevent from sliding off a pitched roof. For such roofs, it is better to choose a lighter landscaping option, with unpretentious plants, such as sedum or lawn grasses.

The composition of the roofing "pie", which allows you to guarantee the life of a real roof garden, includes the following layers:

Root control film. It is placed on top of waterproofing materials that protect the roof surface from moisture penetration, and prevents their destruction under the influence of the roots of plants, bushes and trees.
Insulating mat. It contributes to the retention of moisture and nutrients, which are necessary for the normal growth and development of the plant layer, and also protects the anti-root film from possible damage.
Drainage layer. It performs several functions at once: removes excess moisture, promotes ventilation of the roots of plants, bushes and trees, and also retains the amount of fluid that they need.
Filtration system. This layer protects the drainage from clogging with pieces of soil, and also prevents the leaching of nutrients from the soil substrate.
Nutrient substrate. It is an analogue of soil, specially created for use on the roof, containing many nutrients, allowing air to pass through, not caking or compacting.
Vegetation. The last layer of the roofing pie is made up of the herbs, flowers, bushes and trees themselves that will make up the rooftop garden. For this layer, those crops are selected that are immune to the effects of large amounts of solar radiation.

These six layers are the basis of the roof garden, without which it will be simply impossible to ensure its long and trouble-free operation. All layers are designed, created and laid in accordance with the appropriate technology, since any mistake can cost the life of a plant or the strength of a building.

Safety measures for rooftop gardens

A rooftop garden is most often intensive gardening, that is, a green roofing option that requires frequent maintenance and involves constant human use. It can be a recreational area, games and entertainment for residents of the house or employees/visitors of the office building. And this, taking into account the height of the building, requires the adoption of increased security measures using special structures:

Borders and fences. They must be high enough and strong enough to reliably protect children and adults from falling down. The operation of green roofs without such fences is not allowed due to their danger.
Comfortable stairs with railings. An exit to a garden located on a roof should be equipped for greater convenience than ordinary exits to unused roofs.
Lighting system. For the garden on the roof of the house, not only the landscape composition is thought out, but also the lighting arrangement system. It is needed both for beauty and for comfortable orientation around its territory, even in the dark.

Additionally, wind screens can be used to create such a garden. They shelter the vegetation of the roof from excessive wind exposure, as well as people resting on it. Also, the roof garden can be improved with sidewalk paths, benches, children's playgrounds, sports equipment for adults, gazebos and other objects of a similar plan.

Benefits of a garden on the roof of a building

Modern technologies for intensive greening of roofs to create real gardens on their surface have a whole range of advantages:

Heat saving. Roofing pie, placed on the roof, allows you to save heat and, as a result, significantly reduce heating costs.
Waterproofing. With the correct laying of such a cake, all supporting structures and the interior of the house will be reliably protected from the effects of dampness.
Oxygen production. In modern cities, there is a catastrophic lack of green areas, to which we owe the oxygen necessary for our breathing. A roof garden is a convenient way to increase the area of such areas.
Air purification. Plants, bushes and trees effectively clean the air from harmful compounds and dust.
Leisure and entertainment. Being able to have fun and have fun (and maybe even harvest your own crops) just by stepping onto the roof of your own home or office is an ergonomic solution in the style of the 21st century.

Rooftop Garden Design

Every green roof, even extensive and planted with easy-care herbs, is custom designed. It takes into account all the nuances: from the design features of the building to the climate in which it is located. Since the garden is one of the most complex options for such a roof, it is simply impossible to arrange it without a detailed study of the plan.

Rooftop garden plan includes all features including:

The layout of the layers of the roofing cake.
Information about the materials to be used for each layer.
Information on how to install a roofing pie and the tools that are needed for this.
A diagram of the location of additional devices and structures intended for garden care (for example, irrigation systems).
Layout, types and materials for the installation of protective structures (fences, curbs, stairs).
Scheme of the location and types of lighting fixtures.
Garden organization plan developed by a landscape designer (including data on varieties of plants, shrubs and trees, their planting sites, and decorative plan structures).

In other words, the project documentation contains all the information about the future roof garden that may be needed for its proper creation and installation.

Garden on the roof of a building

In theory, many flat roofs or roofs with a slight slope are suitable for setting up a garden (extensive gardens can be created on pitched roofs if desired). It can be a non-residential building, maybe an apartment building, or maybe a low-rise housing construction facility.

Non-residential high-rise buildings

In recent years, it has become an increasingly popular trend to lay out gardens on the roofs of high-rise buildings: business centers, shopping and entertainment complexes, office buildings and even buildings of various enterprises. They become additional areas for recreation and interesting pastime, not to mention the fact that they improve the ecology of the surrounding area. For such roof gardens, strong and high fencing, lighting and other safety features are especially important, as they can attract a large number of people. They can also install a video surveillance system.

Apartment buildings

Roof gardens in apartment buildings are generally not available to the general public, but only to residents and their guests. Therefore, they are less commercially oriented, they can do without video surveillance systems, but, of course, they still need reliable designs to ensure the safety of others. A garden on the roof of a multi-storey building is especially relevant if there are no ground-based green areas nearby.

Private houses

Private rooftop gardens may be smaller than the rooftop gardens of large high-rise buildings, but that doesn't make them any less charming. Since private houses are usually not too high (at the level of 2-3 floors), gardens on their roofs do not need powerful windproof structures.