Set Up and Benefits of Rooftop Gardening

Gardening is one of my favorite hobbies. When I was in grade school, I used to have a terrace garden as a result of my hobby. That is one of the reasons I choose the topic “Rooftop Garden” as my research paper. Rooftop gardening is self-explanatory which is gardening on the top/roof of a building. A rooftop garden can be called as urban agriculture.

The idea of a ‘rooftop garden’ is in a manner that is participative, pleasurable and enjoyable. While watching videos in class about a sportsman started to build farms at abandoned places/building and supported the unprivileged community. That gave leverage to choose and do research about the rooftop garden. In history, from 4th millennium BC–600 BC traces of the roof garden discovered in Rome Egypt. The ancient time they used ox-drawn water for irrigation purposes.

There are various reasons for a lot of the population to be urbanizing, moving from a rural area to a city. As a result, the cities are getting crowded. It is hard to find land in a city for farming purposes. If somehow there is an empty block of land, then builders would prefer to build a multistory building there because of more demand in real-estate. There are a number of benefits of a rooftop garden. The rooftop garden brings anyone close to nature. Spending time with gardening have health benefits. Nowadays people mostly spend their time with technology such as smartphones, iPad, computer games, video games, and so on. Working in a garden could spend time in a better way. After doing hard work in the garden, when anyone sees the results in the form of beautiful flowers and vegetables to enjoy it gives you pleasure.

Top of a roof is mostly a forgotten place in anyone’s premises. Turning it into a useful place and taking its benefit would a step up a path in communities. In dense and sprawling cities when an open place is not visible for grading then rooftop gardening is a smart way to find a place for having a garden. There are a number of benefits of having rooftop gardening such as educational, health, pleasure, economic, and security of food. Working in a garden is kind of doing exercise and it is soothing. A rooftop garden can be done at a community level when people invite volunteers to work in their garden which in turn strengthens a community and social relations. For parents, it would be a great way to teach kids responsibility and ownership. Also, teaching them where does the food come from.

The first factor in setting up the garden is to assess the roof’s loading capacity, the load that a roof can hold. To undertake the setup, it will be important to consider the weight of plants, equipment, people working there, and water. In that regard to do the structural analysis, there might be a requirement to call a structural engineer. The engineer can evaluate and determine the possibility of carrying out the garden, based on the roof.

Another important factor to consider is to ensure the integrity of the roof’s waterproofing. One more factor to consider is the stability of the roof for the gardening in terms of sunlight. The garden being in a city need to make sure that other tall buildings are not blaming the sunlight. Sunlight is the fundamental requirement of plant growth. Next thing would be sketching and mapping out the plan required for the garden. Good thing is that for installation there are a green roof and engineering companies recently.

After setup, the next factor is taking care of the garden. In terms of taking care of the garden, it requires to pay attention to watering, weeding, spraying insecticides and harvesting. Moisture could damage the structure of the building so it should be under continuous watch. The garden being on the top of the roof so there is no way for the absorption of the extra water like ground absorbs; there should not be more than enough watering to the plants. While building the garden one has to account for high wind conditions, which could ruin the entirety of the garden. To block the high wind there needs to be something high and heavy to sustain the wind force.

At Trent University, there is currently a working rooftop garden which provides food to the student cafe and local citizens. According to Cable News Network, there are various rooftop gardens in the world such as Rockefeller Center Roof Gardens and High Line Park in New York (USA), Kaiser Roof Garden in Oakland in California (USA), Namba Parks in Osaka (Japan), and Kensington Roof Gardens and Barbican Conservatory in London (UK) (Davidson).

Besides the benefits of the rooftop garden, there are limitations to it. Because of weight, there might be potential structural damage. It could damage the sustainably of the roof and structure. Roof’s boundary is limited so there is a limitation of expansion. The garden being in a city if other buildings could block the sun’s exposure. In consideration of weight, there cannot grow tall trees. In the regular (ground) garden there is no limit to plant anything and take its production yield, but at the rooftop garden, there are limitations to production yield because of weight.

Whenever there is a need the supply of produce, it will be just feet away on the roof. With the rooftop gardening, ample and unused space can be used for growing fruits and vegetables and fulfilling need for food. A rooftop garden provides food, temperature control, decoration, great ecological benefits. Due to the fuel consumption of automobiles, emissions of CO2 contribute to air pollution and greenhouse gasses, which drives global warming. It is also a good source for oxygen and to clean the air which mitigates air pollution. According to NPR.org, there are over 359 rooftop gardens in Chicago (Barclay). The garden reduces the absorption of solar radiation. Being on the top and hot air is lighter than cold air so goes up which gets absorbed by the garden and result in reducing energy consumption.