Normandy has a few small green roofs that have been built along the principles of our small green roof guide. We are now taking blogs from our new French site to engage English readers and visa a versa.
Notice the tulips in flower and the leaves of Iris. Iris was traditionally used in Normandy along the ridges of thatch roofs to take up some of the rain water. Bulbous plants like these are great to plant on small green roofs. They can survive the temperatures in the summer time and will flower in early spring to give that extra splash of colour. And of course they are a good nectar source for early pollinators.
A Barn green roofs in Normandy
This is a traditional barn roof that has been give extra support to take the green roofs. Sloped roofs will drain excess water. Very often the vegetation at the peak of the roof will less lush, whilst lower down it is more verdant. This is because of the amount of rainwater that is stored along the gradient. This provides ‘topographical’ variety, which is what we promote throughout our work and the guide.
As we recommend in the guide there are other features like logs etc to provide habitat and visual character to the roof.
French Green Roof Guide
As the guide in France gains members will hope to be able to share further projects from France and perhaps other French speaking regions of the world like Switzerland. And we hope to share more stories from the English speaking world. So if you have a project let us know and we will publish – especially if you have used the guide to get your project into the air.
