Green roof maintenance- Part II

In the previous post we talked about extensive green roof maintenance, so this time we want to discuss some solutions for intensive green roofs maintenance.

For any successful roof garden both properly selected plants and proper maintenance are crucial. Intensive green roofs have much higher maintenance needs and requirements.  All the maintenance details that are important for extensive green roof need to be applied to intensive type of green roof as well. However, every aspect of green roof maintenance (fertilization, irrigation, mowing, pruning, disease inspection) is more intensive because of the wider variety and needs of plants and other green elements such as lawn, shrubs, bushes or even trees.

Irrigation

If you want a lawn on your green roof, you should install pop up sprinklers or subsoil irrigation system and in case you want to implement shrubs, bushes and trees, you should use irrigation pipes. For making things easier, we suggest you install an automatic controller and calibrate, which need to be adjusted according to the needs of each group of plants and climate conditions.

Mowing, weeding and trimming

During spring and summer lawn should be mown every week and the height should go up to 6-7 cm at the beginning of spring and up to 3-4 cm as summer approaches. Weeds should be removed manually at the moment they appear, whereas trimming or pruning of shrubs should be done 3-4 times per year and trees once a year- in the period of tree dormancy.

Fertilization

Fertilization is crucial for a successful lawn on an intensive green roof and is usually applied once a month. Depending on the soil used, you should add all macro and micro nutrients important for the grass. Lawn needs more nitrogen through the growth period (usually during spring and summer) and later on potassium and phosphorus (end of fall and beginning of winter). Shrubs and trees have fewer needs of nutrients, so 2-3 times per year fertilizer application should be adequate.

It is very important to determine a person responsible for maintaining a roof garden. If you don’t have such a person and just want to enjoy watching your roof garden flourish, you can always rely on our experienced and efficient maintenance team.