Green Roof Resource

Visited Chicago this weekend and picked up a couple of news articles. The first one, a New York Times article published September 16, 2004 (p D9), “A Queens Garden Gives New Meaning to ‘Green’”, explains the plans for the Queens Public Gardens in New York. They were originally created for the 1939 World’s Fair, moved to make room for the 1964 World’s Fair, and now are being remodeled to connect the formal gardens with more regional meadow plants. The second article is from Chicago Wilderness, Summer 2004, “Birds on a Cool Green Roof”. This article describes the wildlife that has been found on the green roof of Chicago’s City Hall, which is now about 3 years old. The number and types of birds have increased considerably since its inception.

In my quest to get my hands around the whole modelling the fate and transport of contaminants in green roofs, I’ve started looking into plants. Now my background in horticulture is nonexistent, but I’m learning through my communications with people at the university about difference resources. Here’s an online database for phytoremediation that may be useful as it summarizes experimental data as well as plant specific data. Best of all, it provides citations for learning more.