15 Jun
S and D are growing a bunch of tomatoes, herbs and some flowers in their roof garden in Greenpoint. Count on their cat Nico to keep the squirrels away.
Earlier this week, D pinched back the suckers on their tomato plants and the first blooms are showing up on their tomato vines. Can’t wait to see more photos as the tomatoes ripen.
12 Jun
We’ve got just enough room for people, plants, and patio table in our Brooklyn roof garden, but I’m wondering if we could squeeze in a wall garden? If we could push everything out 10 inches, we could turn the stairwell shed into a wall garden using this stackable wall garden from Lee Valley. Too bad the large wall garden unit is sold out.
You Grow Girl says gardeners must be wary of strawberry pots: “They have poor water distribution and tend to dry out quickly. Sometimes they’re ugly. Or the pockets are too small.” I wonder if that warning would apply to this wall garden container, with strawberry pot style pockets, too?
Smith & Hawken sells a wall garden too. And this wall garden from Oregon is just the inspiration I need to try it out next year:
Images: Lee Valley, Smith & Hawken, OregonLive.com
Related:
The Stack and Grow Planter
12 Jun
Jeffreywithtwof captured this packed Brooklyn roof garden. Check it out: windowboxes with hanging planters on top, plus rose bushes plus that sunny umbrella. The summer sun’s calling my name …
Also check out our photo of Gardening in the Sky.
11 Jun
I really like this New York Times story by Randy Kennedy about growing a fig tree in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I’m itching to add squeeze just one more plant into our garden and I wonder if the Ficus carica ‘Chicago Hardy’ fig tree would be happy on our roof.
I hear that figs grow well in container gardens. If TheKitchn and the University of Illinois Extension say it can work, who am I to doubt?
11 Jun
How long has it been raining for now? A week? A month? Looks like more rain is coming our way this weekend and into next week.
Enough already. I’m not sure how much more of it our fledgling plants can take. While the herbs and the beach grass don’t seen to mind the stormy weather, the sedum is jumping out of its pot trying to out run the rain.
How’s your garden holding up? Should we bring some of our containers inside to dry off?
9 Jun
This San Francisco roof garden was built with the Woolly Meadow.
We haven’t tested Woolly Pockets (or even seen one of these in person yet), but they seem to fill a great roof gardening niche: they’re pretty affordable ($247, hey… one plastic pot at Home Depot is twenty bucks!), lined to protect the roof, and fold-able for winter storage. The containers is light, but be sure your roof can support the weight of soil + plants + water + the Woolly.
Starting out with this $45 Woolly Patch might be the way to go … and I love this sedum.
Images: Woolly Pocket Garden Company, used with permission
9 Jun
Check out this inspiring new Brooklyn brownstone front garden. This planting just went in a few weeks ago and I stop to admire it on my walk to work every morning.
It looks to be all bushes and low-maintenance plants in many shades of green. Does anyone know the botanical names for these plants? I only recognize the rhododendrons.
What an elegant solution for the small garden space in front of many Brooklyn brownstones. This is a container garden space, really. Next year I’d like to try a small wind-loving tree in our roof garden.
8 Jun
Brooklyn terrace and roof gardener Bearsky has more photos to share. (Thanks, Bearsky!)
Spring green sprouts look amazing in concrete troughs, though concrete would be booted off my roof — too heavy! The lion garden sculpture is amazing. Where’d you get it, Bearsky?
I blogged Bearsky’s rooftop vines too.
Images: Bearsky, via Flickr
8 Jun
Did you see the editorial about roof gardens in Sunday’s New York Times?
There seems to be two kinds of roof gardens: there’s the fancy green roof projects like The Times is endorsing in this editorial; and then there’s the roof gardens like ours where you (safely) put a few pots and a patio table up on the roof and having some fun. Both are great, but I’m wondering how the semantics will shake out to define the difference.
No matter what you call them, The Time’s is right about the “weird urban serenity” roof gardens of all kinds create. And check out this fact: “summer heat … can exceed 170 degrees on a roof.”
6 Jun
It doesn’t take too much space to grow a beautiful herb garden. Check out these pictures Prospectus shared on my neighborhood’s message boards.
Tomatoes too!
Brooklyn Roof Garden 