Save Energy - Make your tea outdoors - even on a cloudy day...

Simple way to save energy. Instead of boiling your tea water, place several tea bags in a glass jar and set out in the sun. Cover well. By the end of the day your tea is brewed!

Vertical Wall Hydroponics - grow your vegetables anywhere!

We are developing wall systems to grow vegetables, herbs and flowers on any wall with a hybrid hydroponic watering and nutrient system!

Monday Night Fun - Green Roofing Florida Musings....

Tonight I'd like to introduce you to Robert Solomon, a highly esteemed green roofer. I met Ron (Ron - he prefers to go by his middle name) at the Hillsborough County, Florida (Tampa) Green Roof Symposium earlier this year.

Ron and I are about the same age and we both share a passion for freeing our country from dependence on foreign oil - did you realize that almost 11% of our imported oil is used for asphalt products - as in asphalt roofs....

Ron opened my eyes to the above - and I checked it out on the internet....see How To Save The World

So we are listening to various speakers about vegetated roofs - the benefits and sales pitches, when Ron pipes up about something besides a garden or vegetated roof - He is talking about TPO!... But I listen...and he is right....

Vegetated roofs are not the only Green roofs around....

White PVC and TPO roofs reflect immense amounts of sunlight and keep the buildings they cover as cool as a vegetated roofs, and are much cheaper. White Roofs are also green roofs.

And so I talk to him after the symposium. And we e-mail regularly. Ron is trying hard - very hard to educate the Tampa area businesses and schools and governments and others to stay away from heat loving foreign oil based BLACK asphalt roofing and consider white synthetic roofing.

But more than a public servant for his efforts to reduce heat island effects and conserve energy and help us break dependencies from foreign oil - Ron is a true gentleman.

A man with a spirit of 'It Can Be Done' and 'Have Fun While You Are Doing It'.

I agree with Ron. Life is short - too short.

Lets bring back green to the Urban Core. Vegetated Roofs or White TPO.

He and I are on the same team. The American Team!!!!!!!!!

Urban Green - Even in a Small Space! Small Gardens!

Even small backyards can provide wonderful areas to establish an intense garden, a place where you raise the level of green from flat lawns to a vertical integration of plants providing food, fiber and medicine.

Go ahead. Dig up the lawn. Drive in a half dozen fence posts and add jute string or fencing. Plant the vines - squash, cucumbers, grapes and more. Be sure to include flowers for the table vases.

Purchase a pack of ladybugs from your local garden shop. Every plant is one more step towards restoring green to the urban core!

Check out Judy's MetroVerde site or www.kevinsonger.blogspot.com for more info on urban green!

Sense of Place is Important to Each and Everyone in the Urban Core

Creating a personal, beautiful and productive garden spot is easy! Be it on an apartment or townhome balcony, in a small backyard or in a large estate - you CAN create our food, flower and medicine refugee with little money and good steady effort.

We like the compact, easy to maintain design!

Yours will evolve through the years!

Start now! Email Kevin or Judy with questions or comments and visit our website at www.metroverde.com

Vertical Green - Restoring Green to the Urban Core

It is all about vertical green on an Urban Site. The more vertical green a site has, the more stormwater is treated and attenuated, the more wildlife habitat exists, and the more connections to our historic past interactions with green are resolved for beneficial purposes.

Here the Jincy, Ruairi, Judy and Kevin team have installed what we call a "Shade Trellis'. The shade trellis concept is simple. Shade solar heat gain from entering a house or building through windows with beautiful flowering vines in he summer. Then in the winter, the deciduous nature of the vines causes the leaves to drop and the sunlight is free to enter, heat and warm.

One of the benefits of restoring green to the Urban Core!