Green Roof Happy Hour

Spent the morning cultivating our planters on a Brooklyn rooftop. The Wine Cups, Callirhoe involucrata, are radiating a magic magenta and absolutely overflowing!

You'll notice the native prickly pear, our own Opuntia humifusa, is now in bloom for a limited time engagement. After this it will just go back to being a prick, so enjoy it now!

We'll still love it though - prickly pear can have a lot of uses, but our favorite on a Friday afternoon is the Prickly Pear Cactus Mojito. Happy Friday!

Exciting News - Green Roof Tax Abatement Extended

The New York State legislature extended and improved the NYC green roof tax abatement! New changes allow the maximum value to be doubled, which means property owners can save as much as $200,000 per project. It also encourages the use of biodiverse plants (we love!)

Our friends at S.W.I.M. broke the news and we couldn't be happier! They've also shared their independent evaluation of the NYC Green Roof Tax Abatement report which assesses the efficacy of the abatement.

Proving its a good time to go green!

The Grass Is Greener

Today is just the perfect Friday, and while this is perfect weather for many of you and many of your plants, it is unfortunately also the perfect weather for weeds too. Remember to get out there and stay on top of weeding before the mugwort has reached 10’ high!

Its also a good time to cut back tall plants that look better a little shorter: coreoposis, eupatoirum (Joe Pye Weed), Balloon flower, and Asters. We’ve been tending to one of our very lush green roofs in Brooklyn - you can see the Mexican Feather Grass is thriving!

Including another green roof in Tribeca where the same grass is looking beautiful. We’ve experimented with potting this grass in planters before with fatal results - the drainage was just not good enough and there was way too much irrigation. Green roofs are perfect for this grass, they provide excellent drainage and are generally dry, sunny landscapes.

*Baby not included with green roof installation.

Want some more tips? The lovely Jeanne Rostaing featured one of our recent projects in Fort Greene, and I sat in for some Q&A.