The Winds: Rooftop Gardening Challenges

Design and InstallationGarden Caregarden TriviaLighting and IrrigationPlant Health Care
Written By Peter Morris

Birches bending in the wind

WIND on a rooftop can be strong and hard on your plants !  For those lucky enough to have a sunny windy rooftop, proper plant selection for windy conditions is essential.

While many plants tolerate some wind, on exposed rooftops it is well above the threshold for most. However, Plant Specialists has been designing and installing rooftop gardens for many years and we have learned what works well and what doesn't.  In one word - Flexibility !

Plants with flexible stems or those that do not break easily when bent do exceptionally well.  Here we show a few - for a full spectrum - ask one of our designers to create a garden for you !  

Groundcovers

Tough, resilient and low to the ground most soil creeping plants are well-suited for planting in windswept gardens. Anything low growing usually works well. Sedum, creeping phlox, ivy, Canadian ginger are some of our favorites – we could go on - there are so many !!!!

Asarum - wild ginger

Pulmonaria - so very pretty

creeping Phlox

Grasses

The nature of grasses is to sway and bend ! - our 2 favorites are blue fescue and Pannicum. They also do extremely well in containers over the winter - not all grasses do!  

Pannicum

Festuca

Perennials

The hold on forever and come back every year - sleeping under ground all winter!  Horsetails, yarrow – both silver leaf and fern leaf, and of course Allium!!!  

Japanese painted fern

Equisetum - horsetail

allium - there are so many varieties - and in many colors and shades !

Roses

Only one - Rosa rugosa.  They evolved on the seashore and can handle the wind !

available in white, light and dark pink !

Deciduous Shrubs

Viburnum – my favorite - also Salix. Love the pink !  

pink Viburnum

Salix integra “ Hakuro Nishiki”

Evergreen Shrubs

Holly - Ilex  - but also cedars, and cypress, arborvitae, Junipers, Pinus, Taxus – many !

Juniper

Taxus

Spruce

Holly !

Small Trees

Tough, small, and pretty ! Styrax japonica, Magnolia soulangeana, and the top of the list - Star magnolia  

star Magnolia

Plant Specialists can install lots of wind tolerant plants in your garden !!!

 – plenty of pretty ones too !

don't delay - call us today !

GREENING NEW YORK FOR OVER 52 YEARS !

Article written by our Staff Horticulturist, Peter B Morris, BSc, MSc, MBA

All photographs used with permission from @SHUTTERSTOCK

Peter Morris

Peter was born and raised on a beautiful green island in the midst of a tropical rainforest. He was introduced into the world of plants at the age of six when his grandmother, an avid Spanish gardener herself, asked him to help her grow seeds for her pepper garden. He was hooked! By the time he was a teen, he had his own rose and orchid collection numbering in the hundreds. Botany was in his blood, and that is what he set out to study.

His passion brought him to NY in the late seventies to further his education. His tenacity allowed him to work full time at Plant Specialists while he completed a MS in Plant Biology. As a manager at the time he felt unsatisfied with his knowledge of business and business processes. Peter felt compelled to learn, so he then pursued and completed an MBA in Quality Management within a few short years.

Peter’s other passion is teaching. His natural ability is quickly consumed by our staff in all subjects in Botany, Horticulture, and Landscaping. He created an immense reference library of more than 3,500 plants providing an invaluable resource for our staff.

Peter’s breadth of knowledge and wisdom allows him to effectively diagnose the needs of plants. Sometimes just by walking into a garden he can create a prescription that fixes even the hardest issue. He is our Staff Botanist, Diagnostician, and all around Mentor. Recently, he has put his immense knowledge and skills into developing a new department that focuses on Plant Healthcare. As he puts it, “Magic through Science”. The PHC staff that surround him have avidly consumed his teachings. Substantially developing their own plant wisdom, many have taken on difficult plant health issues with spectacular results.

Plant Healthcare has been an instant success with customers! The proper treatment of insects and diseases including Organic methods has made pest control a necessity for every plant. Correcting hormonal imbalances caused by planting in containers or refurbishing soils leached of nutrients by irrigation systems are big challenges PHC has become quite comfortable addressing. The scientific approach to the complex demands of keeping plants healthy in our harsh city environment has made many a customer say WOW!

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