Recommended Green Roof & Urban Greening Plants

 
 
Green Roof Plant Lovers:

For a much more comprehensive gallery of green roof plants see out mobile and tablet site resource here: http://metroverde.net

Though the common name is a bit unusual, Fleabane Daisy, Erigeron spp. is an extremely drought tolerant green roof plant candidate that blooms early in the spring. Excellent pollinator attractor, especially for bees.
Florida green roof plant Erigeron spp.

 

Gaillardia pulchella, aka 'blanketflower' is an awesome drought, salt, wind tolerant wildflower that blooms all year here in Florida and requires little maintenance.

 

Florida green roof plant, Gaillardia or blanketflower
Florida green roof plant, Gaillardia or blanketflower

Note: All the below featured plants are those I'd recommend adding to a green roof in hot, dry, tropical climates to support biodiversity, provide larval food and nectar, fix nitrogen, provide habitat, sequester carbon, provide oxygen and for many more reasons. We will be adding more plants daily as we develop this resource page.


Yellow Flowering Perennial, Nitrogen Fixing, Florida Natives

Wild Indigo - Dusky wings

Baptisia lanceolata

Fabaceae

Florida Green Roof Plant choice, Baptisia lanceolata
Florida Green Roof Plant choice, Baptisia lanceolata, larval food
Florida Green Roof Plant choice, Baptisia lanceolata, blooms

Spotted Bee Balm, Monarda punctata

Spotted Bee Balm - Horsemint

Monarda puncata

Lamiaceae

 

Undoubtably, Spotted Bee Balm, Monarda punctata should 'bee' a required plant for most if not all North American green roofs, living walls, xeriscapes and urban greening projects.

Green Roof & Urban Greening Plant, Spotted Bee Balm, Monarda punctata a native wildflower

 

This week's photos shown here are of the Lamiaceae's (mint family) hardy native growing only a couple hundred yards off Florida's Atlantic ocean shoreline.

 

Spotted Bee Balm is a pungent native wildflower with a natural range across most of the United States and much of eastern Canada, with a sub-species, M. punctata spp. immaculata endemic to parts of Texas.

 

Spotted Bee Balm is listed as a historical plant in Kentucky, and protected as endangered in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

 

Green Roof & Urban Greening Plant, Spotted Bee Balm, Monarda punctata growing in sand dunes
Importantly, Spotted Bee Balm grows very without additional irrigation in the harshest of places, making her a wonderful landscape plant for xeriscape projects.

 

As a native wildflower, her nectar attracts many Lepidoptera and other pollinators.

Green Roof & Urban Greening Plant, Spotted Bee Balm, Monarda punctata, Florida wildflower
Here in Florida, Spotted Bee Balm grows vigorously on the hot, dry beach dunes, across desert-like roadsides and just about anywhere you can find a sandhill or flatwoods.

 

 

 

Green Roof & Urban Greening Plant, Spotted Bee Balm, Monarda punctata an important permaculture plant
Popular for use in teas, Spotted Bee Balm is high in thymol content and other phytochemicals.

 

Though often confused in use with Citrus bergamia, the bergamont orange and recognizable component of Earl Grey tea, Spotted Bee Balm tea is reported to possess a calmative effect due to the thymol derivatives found in leaves, terminal buds and flowers.

 

Green Roof & Urban Greening Plant, Spotted Bee Balm, Monarda punctata
For Urban Core greening and green roofs, Spotted Bee Balm is a natural choice. As a native wildflower, the plant is already adapted to many climates across North America. Numerous pollinators utilize M. punctata. Ethnobotanically speaking, the plant has many culinary and medicinal uses.

 

Spotted Bee Balm can be used as an annual or perennial, depending on the climate's average winter temperatures, but can be counted on to reseed or come back from roots on a reliable basis.

 

Ideally suited for green roofs, Spotted Bee Balm will provide excellent late summer color and vegetation, long after the Gaillardia and Helianthus have dried and gone to seed.

 

Green Roof & Urban Greening Plant, Spotted Bee Balm, Monarda punctata a native wildflower
Seeds are available through numerous internet resources, including Prairie Nursery and Sand Mountain Herbs.

 

 

 

 

 

1 comment:

Terence Watthens said...

There are quite a number of perennials that would look good on a green roof. That wild indigo you recommended would look nice in a house that is located near the suburbs or by countryside. In choosing plants for your green roof, you can never go wrong with those that are low maintenance and can endure extreme weather conditions.