Brooklyn Roof Garden Tilling the tar beach

We added small trees — some might call them shrubs — to our roof garden early this spring. We’ve been experimenting with plants we can grow with our trees without insulting the trees. How do you think we’re doing?

The first photo shows our Emerald Green Arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis ‘Emerald’) planted with Diamond Frost Euphorbia. The airy, bright, and always blooming Euphorbia lightens the heavy pot without taking attention away from our tallest tree. I wasn’t sure we’d like the euphorbia — some of our neighbors have it planted euphorbia their tree pits, where it looks scraggly and too diffuse to me.

R*’s close up photo shows a small arborvitae we bought last fall. We paired it with a dark purple drought tolerant Heuchera, named Dolce Blackcurrant.