Roofs & Rambles

As part of Planning Aids Green roof week I did a tour of roofs in Islington. Two in fact – the small rof on the Municipal Offices(MO) and the The Muse, the home of Bere architects.

The MO roof is small, about 40m2. However it is soon to be joined by a bigger cousin – 100m2. This will be funded by Buglife through the SITA nature enhanced funds.

[nggallery id=21]

The small roof is about 2 years old now and was constructed along the brown roof principles, using a mix of extensive growing medium, pebbles blinded with extensive substrate and a small area of sand. A number of plants were still in bloom – vipers bugloss, birdsfoot trefoil and common toadflax. It looks like the marjoram and basil will be flowering later than on other roofs providing a valuable nectar source at the end of the season. Interestingly the mullein, which is quite abundant, has already turned to seed. It has just started to flower on the Laban.
Lucerne is also in flower though I have know idea how  or from where it got to the roof. The ten or so bees feeding on the roof visited all the flowers in bloom.

On to The Muse the roofs are still really looking good. A lot of the wildflowers have gone to seed but small scabious is in full bloom. Again ox eye daisy appears to have only just flowered. On most other roofs it was at it’s peak in May.

The roof was a live with both wild and the resident Honey Bees. A couple of small blue butterflies were hanging out on the upper roof. Hopefully there will be evidence of caterpillars soon. And the House Sparrows were foraging amongst the Hawthorns above the studio flat.

And even into mid august the roof is still a flower rich green oasis in a sea of necks and mortar.