My Balcony green roof was built back in 2002. It is the only place on my home I can actually have a green roof. The construction was undertaken for the unfortunately unpublished ‘How to build a small green roof?’ pdf. This preceded our original pdf guide and now the online small scale green roof guide.
English Nature Living roof guide
Balcony Green Roof 1
Sedum acre in flower
Being over 13 years old, it was still looking good. However I had a couple of bags of green roof substrates hanging around. So I decided it would be good to lose the substrate on the balcony green roof. I collected up the sedum that were on the roof. Once the I had spread the substrate I distributed the sedum about across the small area and reseeded.
Habitat Wall on Balcony Green Roof
Last year John had given me a Habitat Wall, which I placed next to the Balcony green roof. Within a few days Red Mason Bees were whizzing in to make their nests. In all there are about 1/3 of the holes being used by the bees. Hopefully other species will find the wall as the season progresses.
I managed to get some good slo-mo footage of the bees coming to the wall.
Cornflowers on the Balcony Green Roof
Cornflowers on Balcony Green Roof
I had seeded the green roof with a mix of annuals and the London Living roof mix. The first of the annuals to come into bloom have been the cornflowers. I can see this from my bed when I wake in the morning – a dash a blue to bring in a new day.
Biodiversity on the Balcony Green Roof
Over the years there has been plenty of wildlife on this small area of green roof. However since I re-invigorated it the Goldfinches have been the star visitor. Back in May about four or five fought over the roof. They were each trying to collect small substrate pieces obviously for their gizzards.
Furthermore, although I haven’t manage to get a shot of it, there is a strange Spider that patrols the roof and the surrounding walls. Waiting to ambush an unsuspecting insect, maybe even a solitary bee.
