Between 40,000 and 50,000 bumblebee colonies are imported into England each year to assist with crop pollination.

For a study in the Journal of Applied Ecology, scientists bought 48 colonies - hives containing up to 100 bees each - from three producers in Europe.

They found 77% had parasites that could infect native bees.

Lead researcher Prof William Hughes, of the University of Sussex, said commercial production and importation of bumblebees had been "going on for decades".

"We couldn't grow tomatoes in this country without these bumblebees," he said.

And with the decline in pollinating insects in recent years, food producers are increasingly reliant upon imported bees.

"Over a million colonies are imported globally - it's a huge trade," said Prof Hughes. "And a surprisingly large number of these are produced in factories, mainly in Eastern Europe.

"We sought to answer the big question of whether colonies that are being produced now have parasites and, if so, whether those parasites are actually infectious or harmful."

For more information got to:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23347867

Sedum matting makes great wildlife habitat

How about this for an ornithological des res?

Whilst inspecting the Enviromat sedum production fields this week, Production Manager Robert Allen startled a pigeon in one of the perimeter hedges.  Never one to miss an opportunity for a bit of bird spotting, Robert took a peek in the hedge and found this nest.

Audacious pigeon had been using sedums to line it's nest and sedum, being a resilient kind of plant, had decided that rather than die, it would go ahead and flower.

Isn't it beautiful?

Conservation Counts

Butterflies and moths react swiftly to changes in their environment - so the weather, the availability of caterpillar food plants, pollution levels and human activities will all have an effect on butterfly numbers that can be measured quickly and relatively easily.

The charity, Butterfly Conservation, organises an annual butterfly count, which over a long period of time, will be able to monitor how different species of lepidoptera (the family name for butterflies and moths) are coping with any significant changes to their surroundings and this information will be used to help conserve these wonderful creatures and, of course, any other living things that share their habitats.  For if butterflies are in a muddle, it's a fair indication that birds (who eat caterpillars), small mammals and possibly even wild flowers are also struggling.

Take part in the Big Butterfly Count

To take part in this important survey, all you need to do is spend 15 minutes outdoors in the sun and record all the different butterfly species you see.  Upload your findings to the Big Butterfly Count website and that's it, you're done.  Simple.

Creating butterfly habitat

Butterflies in the UK are not generally fussy eaters and will benefit from any nectar rich flowers that you choose to plant.  Just make sure that the flower shape is such that nectar is easily accessible - so tulips for example are hopeless for butterflies because their wings won't fit inside the flower, sedums on the other hand have wide open, star shaped blooms that are just perfect.

Not everyone is a gardener, indeed not everyone has a garden, but most of us have room for a little patch of sedum matting that will provide plenty of food for butterflies during the summer months.   Here are some ideas using Enviromat sedum matting.

• Replace one or two of the slabs in your patio with sedum matting
• Create a living green roof
• Put a sedum topping on your bird table
• Use sedum matting on top of a wall
• Have a narrow strip of sedums alongside a path

The wonderful thing about Enviromat sedum mat is that you don't need to be a gardener to encourage butterflies into your outdoor space.

For more information and design ideas, download one of our Free guides to installing Enviromat either on a green roof or on the ground.

Download Green Roofing Guide

Download Sedum Groundcover Guide

Hedgerow and ditch policy.

On our farms we have many miles of hedgerows and ditches. With careful management these provide a valuable habitat for lots of wildlife. They also provide “nature corridors”  linking woods and ponds together.

Our hedges are cut once every two years to allow fruiting and growth. This ensures half of our hedges carry wild fruits and berries through the winter to help wild birds. When we do cut our hedges it is done late in the season to ensure nesting time is over. We also leave verges and tracks uncut to allow wildflowers to grow. This then provides an ideal environment for insects and the wildlife which relies on them. English Partridge are a common site on our tracks as the verges and adjacent hedgerows provide many insects and cover for them and their chicks.

Every year in the Winter we fill in gaps in hedgerows with new plantings, and we have a plan in place to plant new hedges on field boundaries.

Most of our ditches are protected by a 7 metre buffer strip each side. This is uncultivated and is left to regenerate with natural grasses and wild flowers. These have proved very valuable to reptile, mammal and bird life. Barn owls hunt these areas at night and on warm days grass snakes are often seen basking nearby.

For drainage purposes we clean ditches out, but by ensuring this work is carried out during Winter it minimises the impact on wildlife and allows the ditch banks to regenerate in the following Spring.

Love Your Garden with a Sedum Roof

In the episode of Love Your Garden, screened on 30^th July 2013, Gardening Guru Alan Titchmarsh uses sedum matting to create a living green roof on a summer house.

The brand of sedum matting wasn’t Enviromat – although Alan does regularly use Q Lawns turf, grown on the same farm as Enviromat on his program – but nevertheless it was good to see someone of Alan’s calibre creating a sedum roof on a garden building.

Alan and his team were transforming an unloved back garden into a colourful and interesting wildlife haven for Rhyanne Nixon, a lady who has been confined to a wheelchair by Motor Neurone disease.  The planting plan included all sorts of bee-friendly flowers, a green roof, a chicken run, a veg garden and a beautiful pond.  It’s amazing how much one can do in a small space – particularly when the plants are everywhere – including the roof.

If you would like a green roof on your shed or summerhouse, take a look at our “how to” video or download our free installation guide.

Video:  How to make a sedum roof on a shed

Download our FREE guide

Green Roofs on the move

Green roofs have long been hailed as a good solution to pollution and the urban heat island effect in cities and now their scope has been greatly expanded by a new eco-friendly bus that will absorb harmful CO2 emissions.

PhytoKinetic, a system developed by Landscape artist Marc Granen uses condensation from the vehicle’s air conditioning system to water the green roof.

His first green roof bus is being used to transport tourists to and from a nature and camping facility in Girona, Spain.  He has also completed a van with a PhytoKinetic roof.

Q Lawns lorries have a green roof painted onto their cabs to advertise Enviromat sedum matting so I asked our Transport Manager, Patrick, what he thought about adding real live green roofs to our vehicles.  I have to say that he was intrigued by the idea, loved the novelty value but was concerned that the extra weight of the green roof might have a detrimental effect on the trucks’ fuel consumption thus cancelling out all the environmental benefits that the green roof would afford as well as the ones that have been engineered into our lorries.

It would be fun though – maybe I’ll see if my husband will let me put plants on top of his tractor cabs. 

Green roof edgings

The edging on a green roof is intrinsic to the success and the longevity of the entire green roof build up.  Whatever the panting plan, depth of growing medium, type of waterproofing or pitch,  a green roof edging of one kind or another is absolutely essential.

green roof with a timber edging green roof with a metal edging

A good green roof edging should:

• Neaten the appearance of the roof by hiding the build up
• Prevent wind uplift
• Allow excess rainwater to drain away
• Help minimise slippage.
• Be firmly fixed so that it cannot be dislodged during installation or maintenance
• Be made from a material that matches or compliments the building.

A good green roof edging will not:

• Damage the building or the waterproofing

How to make a timber edge for a green roof:

Here is a suggestion for a timber green roof edging on a pitched-roofed garden building where the roof is being made using an Enviromat green roof kit

1. Ensure waterproofing is in place and in good condition
2. Cover the waterproofing with a protective layer of polythene (or butyl pond liner) to protect it against root damage
3. Using screws, Affix some wooden blocks to the edge of the roof.  We recommend that the blocks are at least 2cm thick and spaced evenly along the length of the building, approximately 50cm apart.  These are spacers to enable water to run off the roof without being obstructed by the edging.  Fixing them to the side of the roof ensures that the integrity of the waterproofing is not threatened.
4. Fix a timber fascia board to the spacer blocks.  To be able to hide the Enviromat green roof build up, the fascia must rise at least 5cm above the surface of the roof.  Ideally, it will have been pressure treated or brushed with preservative before being fitted.
5. If you wish, fix another board, at right angles to the fascia to help secure the green roof build up....this is more aesthetic than anything.
6. Following the instructions that come with the Enviromat green roof kit, install your sedum roof being sure to tuck the layers underneath the top fascia as per the diagram below.

 For more help with creating a living sedum roof, why not download our green roof installation guide?

DOWNLOAD INSTALLATION GUIDE

Plan it Plant it: green roofs

Autumn is a brilliant time of year for planning and planting a sedum roof.  A sedum roof will insulate a garden building against cold, protect the waterproofing from frost damage and provide overwintering quarters for a wide range of minibeasts.

If installed in the autumn, a green roof will settle and establish itself over the winter months ready to burst into growth next spring.

Alan Titchmarsh creates a sedum roof for his "Love your Garden" TV Show

How to design a green roof for your shed

Designing a green roof combines the imagination of a garden designer with the structural knowledge of an architect.

First and most important step is to make sure that the roof is strong enough to support the plants and their growing medium.  If you are thinking of using sedum matting, then allow for a loading of 60Kg per square metre for the green roof build up with a bit more for live loading (that’s snow or someone walking on the roof to maintain it).  For a deeper layer of growing medium and a more diverse range of plants, the roof will need to be even stronger than that…..a 10-15cm deep layer of growing medium will weigh in the region of 250Kg per square metre.

Good plant choices for a green roof

Next, choose your plants wisely.  Think about how much material they’ll have to root into (deep rooted plants won’t like shallow growing medium), how big they will ultimately grow,  how much maintenance they’ll need and whether they’ll enjoy the conditions on the roof….remember that the higher off the ground you are, the stronger the wind, hotter the sun and colder the frost will be.

Is there irrigation on the roof?  Will the plants you’re thinking of cope with drought?

sedums are great plants for green roofs

Are you considering a wildflower meadow?  If so, the grass will need mowing at least once a year, is the roof access good enough?

Good plants for 10 cm depth of growing medium are; sedums, sempervivums, thyme, sage, periwinkle, selfheal, common daisy, chives, yarrow, scabious, fescue grasses, hawkweeds, birdsfoot trefoil, and bugle.

For planting into a shallow rooting medium that will put less strain on the building, sedums, sempervivums and the very beautiful meadow saxifrage are excellent choices.

The simple way to make a green roof

There are many different ways to create a living green roof and many different plant species that will adapt themselves to life at a higher level but if you’re new to green roofing or looking for a quick and simple solution to the problem of how to prettify a garden shed, look no further than Enviromat’s green roof kits.

This green roof build up is easy to install, gives immediate plant coverage (there’s no waiting for seeds to germinate or plug plants to establish and spread), is one of the lightest systems on the market and is very competitively priced.

Simply choose between our pitched roof or flat roof options, select the right size and order online for delivery within 3 working days.   Full instructions come with the kit or you can download our guide to green roofing from the Enviromat website.

Creating your green roof in autumn will mean plenty of wintertime foliage followed by a beautiful floral display from late spring onwards, and the shed or summerhouse will be a little bit warmer and a little bit more useable during the chilly season.

Green Roof Kits

Download our green roof installation guide

Green roofs for good health

Doctors and nurses have long been aware of the fact that poorly people who have views of green vistas, plants and living landscapes recover from their illnesses quicker than those looking out at brick walls and bare roofs.  Access to green space is also helpful for their friends and relatives who are understandably stressed at having a loved one incapacitated.  Hospitals are not nice places at the best of times.

But what of hospitals where space is limited and high-rise wards are the norm?  stepping out of a door into a healing garden is probably not possible, but in Germany’s Diakonie-Klinikum and at the Mercy Medical Centre in Baltimore green roofs have been created so that patients can at least have a green outlook, even if they’re not able to physically access a healing garden.

Hospital green roofs from the patient's perspective

Landscape Architecture student Kevan Busa studied for his qualification whilst in hospital receiving treatment for leukemia.  Kevan completed his final project on the healing potential of landscape design from a patient’s perspective.   Highlighted in the June 2013 issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine, Kevan explains the frustration of a poorly designed healing space.  “A visit to an outdoor garden is out of the question for many patients” Busa wrote “the solution may be gardens that can be experienced from indoors, through glass.  This idea may not sound terribly inviting, but it is a far preferable alternative to 100 days of brick walls.”

Healing roofs at home

Enviromat’s Angela Lambert has personal experience of the value of a green roof to poorly people.  Angela’s mother has back problems that mean she cannot always tackle the stairs in her Hertfordshire home.  Sometimes she gets stuck upstairs (there’s no downstairs loo) for hours at a time where she occupies herself by watching the comings and goings of butterflies, bees and other wildlife on the green roof of the shed that her bedroom window overlooks.  “The green roof is far more interesting to watch than daytime TV and helps Mum feel connected with her beloved garden even when she can’t get out of doors” says Angela

Green Roof Maintenance in Autumn

Summer 2013 was a challenging year for many sedum roofs.  Sedums are a brilliant choice for green roofing because they are drought tolerant and can withstand high temperatures, but this summer was challenging even for such well adapted plants.

Problems arising from the dry summer

At Enviromat we tend to discourage people from over-watering their sedum roofs.  In general, we find that over relatively short periods of time, too little water is better than too much.  An excess of water or nutrients will result in weeds and grasses thriving on the roof and spoiling the visual effect.  However, the long, hot dry days during summer 2013 have left some sedum roofs stressed out.

Weeds and grass are often a result of
over-watering a sedum roof 

Drought stress

Sedums are very good at coping with drought due to a special metabolism that is unique to plants from the crassulacae family.  Typically, in drought conditions, a sedum plant will change from being green leaved, vibrant and succulent to having browny-red coloured foliage and small, tight, bead-like leaves.  This is perfectly normal and the plant will go back to its robust self when the weather is more friendly.

If however, the leaves look dried, wrinkled or baggy – like a deflated balloon – the plants are in trouble and need a good soaking to help them out of a muddle.

A typical sedum roof after prolonged drought

Other summer problems

If plant coverage has disappeared over the summer either all over or in large patches, then there may be a problem with nutrient levels or with red spider mite.

Autumn Feeding

While the weather is still mild, plants are quite capable of taking in the nutrients they need to help them survive the winter months.  Apply Nutrifusion Green Roof Feed in September, particularly if your roof was not fed during spring or summer.  But beware, after September there is a risk that this formulation may result in excessive growth that is less frost-hardy than it ought to be.  If in doubt – contact our expert.

Red Spider Mite

These small but voracious pests are more frequently associated with greenhouses because they like hot dry conditions.   Unfortunately, conditions on a green roof this summer have emulated the environment inside a hothouse, and on some roofs, particularly pitched roofs that are super-dry, the sedum plants have been attacked.

Symptoms of red spider mite include dry-looking roofs with very poor plant coverage, sorry looking vegetation and if you get really really close you can see very small creatures scurrying across the substrate.  You may also notice fine white webs – like miniature spider webs on the roof.

If you think you have Red Spider Mite, the best treatment is to water the roof really well every day for at least a fortnight to get rid of the mites.

If you have any worries at all about your green roof, please don’t hesitate to contact us for free advice. 

Contact our Green Roof Maintenance department

Order Green Roof Feed

A sedum green roof shed

With thanks to Linda B who sent us this photograph of her green roof shed.   Linda downloaded the green roof installation guide from the Enviromat website and followed the instructions faithfully to create this green-topped wonder.

Can't wait for spring time - hopefully we'll have some pictures of the roof in full bloom.  Lovely.

Download our Free Guide to installing a sedum green roof

Send us pictures of your own project

How to choose plants for a green roof and save yourself money

There are a myriad of different plants that are suitable for a green roof, but which ones are they and will they be happy on YOUR green roof? Or will they eventually need to be replaced at great expense?

Choosing the right plants for your green roof will ultimately save you a whole heap of money.   If the plants are happy with the micro-climate on your green roof and with the maintenance regime you can reasonably manage, they should be virtually self-sustaining so that you won’t need to keep re-seeding or re-planting at great expense.

Factors affecting plant choice

Depth of growing medium.  

Plants need growing medium to anchor their roots, to provide water and to provide nutrients (and this must be a specially engineered green roof substrate, not ordinary topsoil or compost).  Depending on the root system and the plants’ nutritional requirements, some species will need a deeper substrate layer than others. For example, sedums are very shallow rooted and are content to live in 2cm on substrate.  Wild flowers and grasses need at least 10cm. 

Why does this matter?  The substrate will add extra weight to the roof.  The deeper the growing medium, the heavier it will be.  If your roof is not super-sturdy you may need to limit your plant choice to sedums or sempervivums.  If the building will take a great weight, you have a greater range of plants to choose from.

Sunlight or shade?

If your roof is shaded by trees or by other buildings you will need to choose shade tolerant plants such as woodland bulbs (bluebells, aconites etc), woodland grasses, red or white dead nettle and primrose.  Shade tolerant plants are most likely to flower in spring and tend to offer foliage rather than colour for most of the year. 

On a sunny roof, bear in mind that the temperature on the roof is likely to be at least a couple of degrees higher than the temperature on the ground; It will also be more exposed to drying winds, and therefore the plants on a sun baked green roof either need to be very drought tolerant, or they will need an irrigation system. 

Sedums are adapted to living in dry conditions where the soil is thin or poor and so they make a great choice for roof plants.  As do most hardy alpines such as meadow saxifrage and some of Mediterranean herbs such as thyme that will withstand frost.

NB if there are overhanging deciduous trees, be prepared to clear away fallen leaves in the autumn.

Irrigation on the roof. 

If you are wanting soft-leaved plants that are prone to wilting in hot dry conditions, make sure you have irrigation available, especially if you have cut it fine on the substrate.  Irrigation needn’t be a super-sophisticated system.  It could just be yourself with a hosepipe….but be sure at the planning stage that you will have the time and the energy to water your roof should you need to.

Aspect. 

The higher the roof, the more exposed it will be to the weather.  If you have a tall building in a windy spot, choose plants that are low-growing (so they don’t get buffeted and scorched by the wind) and drought tolerant.  They’ll also need to be frost hardy.

Maintenance requirements. 

If you like gardening, have plenty of time and can access the roof safely and easily then maintenance should be no problem to you.  If, on the other hand it’s not practical for you, or a contractor, to be on the roof more than once or twice a year, choose plants that don’t need strimming, pruning, vast quantities of feeding, weeding or general care.  Remember though, that any green roof will need maintenance at least once a year.  That’s a feed, weed and clear out drainage outlets.

>more about green roof maintenance

Establishment.

 How soon do you want your green roof to be entirely green?  Can you wait for seeds or plug plants to establish or do you want the instant coverage of a sedum mat?  Is your substrate layer deep enough to plant into? Do you have irrigation to keep seeds moist until they get a good start

Colour. 

 Once you have determined which species will actually survive on your roof, then you can look at the colour pallet. 

For more information on choosing green roof plants that will survive long-term with a sensible amount of TLC, download our FREE booklet, “Designing for Maintenance”.  You will also find advice on access, loadings, maintenance regimes and troubleshooting.

Download Free Guide

A Question about Green Roof Edgings

I am about to order a Sedum roof for a new extension. The roof is flat with a 6 inch parapet/upstand. I’ve read the installation instructions and it all seems very straight forward however there is a reference to a pebble edge. Could you tell me if this is optional or mandatory? I won't be able to see the roof from the house so if it's just decorative I’ll give it a miss, however if it's essential for drainage I'd need a bit more detail about the width of the edge band
hope you can help
AG

Hello There

On a small sedum roof the pebble edge can have 3 functions.

1. Drainage – it helps to channel excess water away from the roof and makes it easier to prevent plants from blocking drainage outlets
2. Protects the edges of the sedum mat against the wind and against drying out
3. Aesthetics – gives a nice neat edge to the roof. 

Common sense dictates that a pebble edge is not a good idea on a sloping roof – the last thing anyone needs is for the rocks to be dislodged and fall to the ground!

On a flat roof however, whether or not to have a pebble edge is a matter of taste rather than necessity.  If the green roof area is 50m2 or less, and is definitely not prone to puddling after heavy rain, then the drainage aspect shouldn’t be a problem…..just be sure that drainage outlets are always kept clear of vegetation and debris.

You have a parapet that will protect against wind uplift and drying out so yes, for your roof the pebble edging is optional.  If you do decide to go for it though, it’s important that the sedum layer finishes before the pebbles begin.  Don’t try to put pebbles on top of the sedum matting – you will make yourself a whole lot of work weeding out the plants as they grow through it.

I hope this helps

For more information, why not download our FREE green roof installation guide

Download green roof installation guide

Download our design guide and save green roof maintenance headaches

The growers of Enviromat sedum matting have published a new guide aimed at homeowners, garden designers, shed builders and landscape professionals who are thinking of installing a living green roof.

Entitled “designing for maintenance”  the guide is packed with useful advice on choosing green roof plants, the best depth for substrates, building strength, roof slopes,  and important maintenance issues.

Green roof maintenance should be a major design consideration

All green roofs need a modicum of maintenance every year.  The amount of work involved depends on a combination of the plant species in place, the weather, physical features of the roof and it’s general condition.  Ensuring that green roof maintenance is as simple and economical as possible is something that really should be considered at the design stage.

Designing for Maintenance has been compiled using experiences from Robert Allen, Enviromat Production Manager and Kevin Docherty, Enviromat’s green roof installation and maintenance man.  Kevin carries out green roof maintenance on all types of green roof, all over the UK.

To download a free copy of the guide, simply log on to http://www.enviromat.co.uk/green-roof-design-guide, fill in the form and click on the button.

Don’t worry – Enviromat will never share any of your information with anybody else.

Download the guide

Having problems with green roof maintenance?

email Kevin Docherty for advice or visit our web site

These two garden studios, photographed at different times of the year show just how a shed or summerhouse can be transformed with a living green roof.  

Just imagine how lovely these look when viewed from an upstairs window......far nicer than asphalt!

For more photographs of sheds with green roofs, please take a look at our gallery page

Visit our green roof gallery

Download our FREE green roof installation guide

How to use Enviromat as Pond Edging

It’s difficult to find plants to use around the edge of a pond.  Particularly if you want them to hide the pond liner, attract wildlife, refrain from dropping seeds, leaves and debris into the water and look lovely all year round with the minimum of attention from you.

Provided the pond in question is in a sunny spot, sedum matting fulfils all of those criteria.

My lovely Brother (who my children call “Auntie Dave”) put a little pond in for me as a Christmas present one year.  It’s beautiful, tucked around the corner from the summerhouse with a little fountain and some twinkly lights.  It’s also home to two frogs and a myriad of insects and it gets visited by blackbirds, sparrows, blue tits et al.  I love it.

The landscaping however fell on my shoulders and there was I with a hole full of water edged by a 60cm width of butyl pond liner.  I couldn’t cut it or remove it – because then the pond would collapse – and it’s in such a place that it would have been difficult to lay paving around it.   Hmmm a conundrum.

Then I remembered sedum matting.  It’s normally thought of as green roofing material, but actually adapts well to being used on the ground.  The plants already have as much growing medium as they need so there’s no need to dig a hole or add extra soil. It does need to be installed properly – as if it was on a roof but the low growing plants are adored by butterflies and bees and they don’t drop leaves all over the place.

Avoiding weeding

Going to the extra expense of buying drainage mat and water retention along with the sedum matting seemed a bit daft, but actually it was a worthwhile investment.

If sedum mats are laid directly on the soil, any seeds that are dropped on to it by visiting wildlife can happily germinate and put their roots down into the earth for a ready supply of food and water. 

When the weeds are denied access to soil, a long dry summer will kill them off naturally.  Sedum plants on the other hand will normally survive a drought without too much fuss.

How to install Sedum matting on the ground

Lightly rake the soil and remove all sticks, stones and debris.

Cover the area with heavy gauge polyethene or butyl pond liner

Unroll a layer of drainage matting on to the poly.  This will prevent the plants becoming waterlogged.

Lay water retention matting on top of the drainage mat….all of these mats can be trimmed with scissors or a sharp knife, but take care not to damage the polyethene.

Your Enviromat sedum matting is the last layer to be installed.  It sits on top of the water retention matting.

Give everything a good soaking to settle it in and BINGO! Your pond is surrounded by a carpet of plants.

Sounds too good to be true?  believe me, it really does work!  You'll find some more photos and examples in this instruction leaflet from Enviromat.  

Download  Instruction Leaflet

Plan your Green Roof thoroughly and avoid tragedy

Some people are blaming the collapse of the supermarket roof in Latvia on the construction of a green roof and childrens’ playground on top of the building.

Over 50 people died in the incident and more were injured when the roof of the building caved in.  There is speculation that the structure may have been unable to support the large amount of building materials and soil that was believed to be on the roof at the time

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25068291

Robert Allen from Enviromat has been involved with growing sedum blankets and wild flower matting for green roofs for a decade, and in that time he has never heard of a green roof  collapsing under its own weight. 

“Plants, growing media and drainage layers, as well as the people installing and maintaining a green roof all add weight to the building.  On a sedum roof we’re talking about 60Kg per square metre just for the materials and on a wild flower roof, it can be upwards of 250Kg per square metre.  Common sense dictates that when you’re building a green roof, whether it’s on a garden shed or a supermarket, the extra loadings are calculated and the building is checked to make sure it will cope.  This is an awful tragedy but I hope to goodness it’s a one-off.  I’ve never heard of a similar incident in Britain and I hope I never do”

Benefits of a living green roof

A living green roof brings with it a wealth of benefits. 

• Insulation against heat, cold and noise – helping to keep fuel bills under control
• Rainwater amelioration – helping to avoid overwhelming our drainage systems
• Pollution control – the plants absorb “nasty’s” from the air and either turn them back into harmless substances or keep them locked up out of harm’s way.
• Producing oxygen – the more plants we have, the better as far as I can see.
• Improving the view – who wants to look out onto a boring expanse of waterproofing?
• Adding to biodiversity – via the plants themselves and all of the creatures they attract and support.  We’re talking here about wildlife corridors, eco-systems, food chains and, in some cases, conserving rare breeds

Sensible green roof design leads to safer, more sustainable buildings

To shy away from green roofing just because of one incident would be a crying shame but this awful tragedy really does highlight the need to take a holistic approach to green roof design.  For example, the plant pallet which supports biodiversity is in turn supported by the growing medium.  The depth of growing medium determines the loading that the "green" exerts on the roof.  A shallow rooted plant will be happy in shallow growing medium which weighs less while something like wild grasses need more growing medium which makes for a heavier loading.

Designers need to consider a green roof from the ground up.  Asking questions such as

• Is the building suitable? 
• Can materials be safely lifted on to the roof?
• Do the contractors know how to spread the weight while they’re working? (piling all the materials in one spot while they’re waiting to be installed is asking for trouble and may have contributed to the Latvian disaster)
• How much will this roof weigh when it’s saturated with water and the plants are fully grown?
• Has live-loading been factored in? 
• Is this the right depth of growing media for the plant pallet?
• Are the right plants being put in the right place?

There are lots of things to think about in green roof design and all of them are important; especially if you are keen for the roof to be as self-sustaining as possible.

The growers of Enviromat have produced a white paper entitled “Green roofs: Designing for maintenance”.

In it, there are hints and tips on green roof loadings, optimum roof pitch, plant selection and maintenance programs.

The guide is available as a free download from www.enviromat.co.uk/green-roof-design-guide or, email angelal@qlawns.co.uk if you would prefer to receive a copy in the post.

Download green roof design guide

How to make a green roof

Ideas for a front garden

Who lives in a place like this?

The front garden presents householders with a myriad of garden design challenges.  Whilst the back garden is usually a private, personal space where no-one sees and no-one judges, the front of the house is on show for all the world to see. 

That little piece of England in front of a home is the public persona of a house, and its occupants.  If you’re thinking of selling the property, first impressions are everything.  An unkempt garden can so easily devalue your home. Conversely, a well maintained garden will increase kerb appeal and may even boost the buying price a little.

Your front garden is the approach to the house that greets visitors before you do and it  offers an answer to the question “who lives in a place like this?” So from a human perspective, your front garden needs to reflect your own tastes and personality – which is difficult if it’s also a car park.

What to think about when designing a front garden

Any garden, but especially a front garden needs to be functional, attractive, affordable and manageable. In an ideal world it will also be sustainable, in tune with the environment and attractive to wildlife.  Questions to ask yourself include;

• Will there be a hard standing for the car (or cars)? 
• How important is privacy?
• Does it need to provide shade for the house or let in as much light as possible?
• Should it be toddler proofed?
• Will the pets be using the garden?
• How long each week/month/season do you want to spend caring for the garden?
• Will you employ a gardener or are you happy to do the work yourself?

Remember that you are not the only one who uses your garden.  Front gardens have the potential to make amazing wildlife corridors and of course the more plants you have, the more you are doing to improve air quality.  Don’t forget too that soil and soft landscaping is so much better at absorbing rainfall than hard surfaces.  A lawn, a flower bed or a shrubbery can take an awful lot of the strain off our overworked drains.

None of the above need to be labour intensive if you don’t want them to be;  Personally I love fiddling about in the garden and if I’m in the front garden I get to chat to neighbours and passers-by too, but I can empathise with anyone who doesn’t like gardening (I feel the same way about housework).

Practicality matters

I share a front garden with our neighbour and a constant source of irritation is that delivery folks tend to trip accross the lawn to get from Bob's door to my door and vice-versa.  They've gradually carved out a compacted track accross the grass sward that never ever looks attractive. Next spring, I shall mostly be putting some stepping stones down so that the poor lawn gets less of a battering.

How about planting a native hedge?  You can control what height it reaches so it can give you privacy, or it can stay low enough to let the light in your windows.  More importantly it has the potential to provide nectar for pollinating insects, laval food for butterflies, nesting spots and autumn berries for the birds and a wonderful place to shelter for hedgehogs and other small mammals.   Use a weed control membrane when you’re planting and the only work a native hedge will generate is a quick trim in late autumn to keep it at the height you want it to be.

Climbing plants are brilliant.  I’m a great fan of ivy, especially at this time of year when I cut pieces off to add to my Christmas decorations in the house.  Ivy flowers when there are very few other sources of winter food for bees and late flying moths and it’s one of the most self-sufficient plants there is.  It doesn’t take up much space – because it grows upwards – and it doesn’t need lots of attention.  If you’re nervous about growing it up the side of your house, let it twist around a pole instead, or, buy one of those wire topiary frames and really make a feature of it.

Take a look at http://www.gardeningdelights.com/topiary-frames/wild-animal-topiary-frames.html for inspiration.

Plants in containers

I’m rubbish at hanging baskets and container gardening, I always forget to water them but if you have a better memory than me, they can provide such a lot of colour, nectar and interest at any time of year.  

A hanging basket lined with sedum matting. This
will stay green all year round and can have all sorts
of plants added to it. 

Ground cover

If the hard standing for the car really is essential, why not remove the paving stones where the wheels never run and slot in a piece of sedum matting?  Its low growing, easy maintenance and will flower beautifully all summer long.  Butterflies and bees are attracted to sedum plants like little magnets.

Traditionally, front gardens all had well-tended lawns.  I remember it was always my Dad’s job to cut the lawn on a Sunday morning.  He had an old Qualcast push mower and was forever competing with Mr Bird at number 11 and Mr Rowsell at number 13 to have the best looking lawn.  Nowadays Mr Bird and Mr Rowsell are tending the big lawn in the sky and neither neighbour seems to be quite as fastidious about gardening as those two elderly gents were but at least none of them have concreted over their lawns yet. 

Lawns seem to be out of favour with the trendy garden designers but you know, they’re really not that bad.  Blackbirds love foraging for worms on a close-cut lawn and as long as the grass plants are fed, mown regularly and occasionally spot-treated for weeds, they’re not as labour intensive as people are led to believe.  They certainly give a property an air of maturity and make it look loved far more than brickweave ever can.

If there isn’t room for a lawn and a car, why not put in some of those ecogrid tiles to reinforce the grass?  That way you can have your cake and eat it.  I must confess though, I have never tried carrying shopping bags across an ecogrid lawn whilst wearing heeled shoes and supervising a toddler…..it might not be practical for everyone!

I guess the point I’m trying to get across is that the front garden needn’t and shouldn’t be a sterile expanse of brickweave or gravel.  Do some research online, commission a garden designer (they’re not as expensive as you might think) and you can soon create a real talking point in front of your house without breaking the bank, or your back.

In an ideal world, what would you put in your front garden? 

A pretty front garden designed by Zinnia.  Note the hedge,
the climbing plants and mixed, bee-friendly planting.

Discover how Sedum matting can be used in a front garden
with our FREE guide to installing Enviromat on the ground.

Download the guide now 

Plants v paving? which is best for a low maintenance garden?

Looking for ideas to make garden maintenance a whole lot easier?  I’ll wager that the first thing that popped into your head was either hard landscaping (paving, decking etc) or some sort of aggregate (slate, gravel, pebbles etc)

What about if there was a way to cover the soil, keep mud at bay and impress the neighbours without having to spend hours and hours every year on weeding, mowing, deadheading and pruning?

Carefully chosen ground cover plants can do just that.

Three reasons why ground cover plants are better than paving

1. Allow for natural drainage.

Flash flooding is an annual hazard in some parts of the UK.  Part of the blame can be attributed to people paving over their front gardens for car parking space and building patios round the back for seating and eating areas.  Hard landscaping isn’t as good at absorbing rainwater as a good old English lawn and as our fields and meadows are replaced by homes and roads, there is less and less soil to soak up the rain.  The drains can’t cope with the onslaught of water and so they overflow, making life difficult for anyone who lives and works in their vicinity.

Most of us need to park the car somewhere and most of us want to be able to eat outside when the weather is fit.  Not many of us want to wade through mud to get to the back door either so some hard landscaping is excusable.  But to concrete over the soil just to save work is a bit naughty in this day and age.  Some sort of soft landscaping using weed control membrane to save work is so much more sustainable. 

1. Prevent soil erosion

I have a problem in my farmyard where every time it rains hard, the gravel and some of the soil beneath it washes out of the gate and down the hill.  This is soil erosion and it can be a downright nuisance.

Mother Nature has a cure for soil erosion.  Plants.  Plant roots work their way in between soil particles in the search for water and nutrients.  As they do so, they create a web or a net of fibrous roots that fixes the soil where it is and helps to stop it being washed away. 

Leaves and stems also help prevent soil erosion.  Picture yourself pouring water out of the spout of your watering can into a pot of soil.  The water will displace the soil, moving it around and maybe creating a sizeable hole.   Now picture yourself pouring water out of the same watering can but this time with a rose (sieve-like thing) on the end of it.  It makes lots of little dents in the surface of the soil but is much less likely to wash it away.  That’s because the water is broken up into smaller droplets.

When rainwater falls on the soil it can displace it.  But, when rainwater falls onto a leaf or a stem, it bounces slightly and breaks into smaller droplets.  The smaller droplets bounce too and so they become even smaller.  By the time they filter down to the soil they’re too teeny weeny to do a lot of damage so the soil stays put.

3.Supporting wildlife

A paving stone has very little attraction for an insect…apart from it being a nice place for sunbathing and drying out newly hatched wings.

A plant on the other hand is likely to have flowers that are rich in pollen and nectar for food.  It provides shade from the sun and shelter from the wind.  There’s a good chance it’ll have nooks and crannies for nesting and/or laying eggs and the leaves may well be an important food source for your babies.

Plants support insects and insect lavae that happen to be tasty treats for songbirds and small mammals.

More topical though, some ground cover plants such as sedums, thyme or bugle produce large numbers of nectar rich flowers that are invaluable to our honey bees, bumble bees, moths and butterflies.

Oh – and here’s a fourth reason for having ground cover plants instead of  paving…they look lovely!

Favourite ground cover plants

My own favourite ground cover plants are the ones that spread quickly, flower profusely  and need very little attention.

Thyme

Thyme is available in most garden centres and the little plants are usually quite affordable. The ones with variegated leaves are particularly pretty.

Cotoneaster

Some varieties of cotoneaster have a low, spreading growth habit and are just perfect for ground cover when they’re planted through a weed membrane.  I have a couple of these plants in my garden and they never fail to delight with beautiful autumn colour, vibrant berries for the birds to eat and tiny flowers in the spring that are pretty unspectacular to look at but attract bees from miles around

Sedum Spurium

Ooooooh I just love the flowers on this plant.  It’s an evergreen, so keeps its leaves all winter round.  It spreads quickly, doesn’t seem to be affected by any pests or diseases and the late summer flowers are a magnet to butterflies.  So easy and so beautiful.

Sedum album

Sedum album is a drought tolerant beauty that flowers early in the season with a mass of tiny pinky-white flowers.  When it’s in full bloom it looks as though the leaves have been covered in candy floss.  I love it.

Sedum pulchellum

One of my favourite sedums because it’s a little bit quirky.  The flowers are a pretty pale pink and appear in late spring and again in early autumn – already I’m seeing plenty of value in this plant. But what I love most of all is the shape of the flower spike.  It kind of comes up from the leaves in a single stem that then divides into four fronds all of them covered in tiny star shaped flowers.  It looks just like an exploding firework and like all sedums is very easy to care for.

How to get quick results from ground cover plants

Waiting for tiny plug plants to spread out and give complete coverage of an area can take quite a bit of time…unless you can afford to buy lots and lots of plants and the time to put them all into the ground one buy one.

A good way to establish ground cover easily is to use sedum matting.  Sedum matting is often thought of as being a green roofing material but it actually adapts really well to ground use.  Provided that it’s placed in a sunny spot with good drainage, sedum matting will delight you all year round.

To find out more,  visit www.enviromat.co.uk or download this free guide on using sedum matting as ground cover

About using sedum matting for ground cover

Download the free guide

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 
from all of us at Enviromat

Robert, Ben, Angela, Chris, Kev, Mark, Debs, Kate, Becca and Kelly wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a thoroughly successful New Year.

Christmas Closing Dates at Enviromat 

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