Roof Clover Planting Update, Sloped Vegetated Roof & Roof Permaculture

Crimson Clover on Green Roof - Day Eight

Green Roof crimson clover's day number eight and the juvenile plants are thick with leaves. 

Roots are shooting down into the engineered soil and locking themselves into the underlying weave.

We planted the clover on another roof with a little more slope also during a three year maintenance program.  The roof contains agaves and is nature irrigated.

Agaves on Sloped Extensive Green Roof System

There is about 2" of structural soil on this roof and the agaves have acclimated themselves and their root development to the slope and shallow soil depth. 

During the maintenance work we cut out and removed the mat section from around one of the agaves. 

We thought we had left plenty of room by cutting out 12" from the outside diameter of the agave however when the section was removed we had cut through an extensive lateral root system.

It appears that under shallow soil conditions, agaves send their roots out horizontally rather than vertically.

Finally, following up with the permaculture posting from yesterday, the spring mix we planted in the swaled green roof are standing up straight and looking good!

As always, email us your questions by clicking here.

Happy Green Roofing!

Kevin