Plant Gardens in the Sky; a book review about penthouse gardening

Roof Terrace Gardening, Michele Osborne, Aquamarine.

Gardening in the sky is not a novel idea. As far back as 600 or 500 BC, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar ordered the construction of urban hanging gardens to please his wife, saddened when she was separated from the plants of her homeland.

Today, many urban dwellers choose to incorporate adjacent rooftops into their living spaces. Here, on these very desirable roofs, terraces, and balconies, they create lush outdoor gardens that enhance the quality of their lives by adding a natural balance to city living.

High above the bustle of densely populated areas, urbanites living in these privileged spaces are able to experience air that seems purer, a sense of freedom and privacy, brighter daylight, infinitely more sunlight, and closeness to nature that is often associated with mountaintop experiences. At these heights, people are more likely to be aware of the ever-changing shapes of clouds, the colorful drama of sunrises and sunsets, and the majesty of thunderstorms.

With strategic planning, apartment dwellers that are fortunate enough to include a rooftop into their living quarters, a concept sometimes known as a penthouse, can enjoy many of the benefits of a garden. However, the approach to achieving a quality outdoor life, high above a densely populated urban area, requires an approach different from that used to create a bucolic retreat in a back yard or on an estate.

A rooftop garden design must take into consideration building and zoning regulations, structural integrity of the apartment building, irrigation and waterproofing, physical access for both enjoyment and maintenance, and weather elements that are harsher at great heights than they are at street level.

In this very practical mass-market publication, the author offers a variety of inspiring design ideas that meet the needs of most aspiring rooftop gardeners. Readers will learn how to plan a design for a multipurpose outdoor space that takes into consideration one’s needs for entertaining, relaxation, play, and contemplation.

The author has also includes suggestions for furniture, containers, ornamentation, lighting, water features, and the selection of plants. Readers will be guided into choosing vegetation, not only for beauty, but also for privacy, shade, accents, visual background filler, and for growing food. The plant recommendations are influenced by the ability of certain vegetation to withstand the exposed, harsh conditions associated with windy, sun drenched rooftop gardens.

Michele Osborne graduated from the Sorbonne in Paris as a linguist before moving to England. There, her passion for art and architecture inspired her to become a landscape designer. Working privately and with developers and architects, she has completed projects both in England and abroad. 

Designing many roof terraces in London's East End and Docklands allowed her to discover views of the city, which she found so exhilarating that she decided to abandon her Victorian terraced house in favour of a converted telephone exchange, where she could build her own roof garden. She is a winner of the prestigious Guardian's Britannia Home - builder's Award for "Best Landscaping" and her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Garden History in London.

Current Trends in Urban Garden Design

Readers who follow my garden book reviews may have noticed an emphasis this season on two landscaping topics:- a] gardening in confined urban spaces and b] landscaping without lawns.

From that perspective, it is reassuring that the publishing industry recognizes the large number of urban gardeners who have location-related challenges that need to be addressed. City dwellers must be relieved to know that having a lawn is not, and never has been, a prerequisite to enjoying a beautiful garden.

With the emerging targets markets for container gardening and no-mow lawns, it is prescient that Proven Winners reflects these two trends in their current publication The Gardener’s Idea Book. It differs from previous PW brochures as it focuses primarily on the urban gardener and apartment dweller, both of whom are more likely to garden on a patio, deck, or balcony rather than on a lawn.

Below are images of some of the urban settings that PW commissioned for their current brochure. They illustrate how easy it is to create a pleasurable floral oasis on a deck or patio using only containers, window boxes, and raised flowerbeds.

Once they are planted, such gardens require less attention and maintenance than traditional flowerbeds do. There is no space for weeds to grow in containers or raised beds covered with wall – to – wall plants. The abundant use of annuals reduces the amount of maintenance required to tend some perennials. In addition, there is little or no grass to cut, feed, and water on a deck or patio.

While the emphasis in this publication is on Proven Winner’s attractive, trademarked annuals, readers might want to consider adding perennials, ornamental shrubs, and roses to their raised flowerbeds. Where budgets permit, these plants are also quite effective when used for container gardening.

Image © www.provenwinners.com Used with permission.

Plants included in above arrangements: ANGELFACE® Blue Angelonia hybrid, SUPERBELLS® Plum, SUPERBELLS® Red, and SUPERBELLS® Yellow Calibrachoa hybrids, Sweet Caroline Bewitched and Sweet Caroline Raven,  Ipomoea batatas, SUNSATIA® Raspberry Nemesia hybrid, SUPERTUNIA®, Red and SUPERTUNIA® Royal Velvet Petunia hybrids, COLORBLAZE® Dipt in Wine, Solenostemon scutellarioides (Coleus), and GRACEFUL GRASSES® KING TUT® Cyperus papyrus

Image © www.provenwinners.com Used with permission.

In matching containers above center: - SUPERBELLS® Dreamsicle and SUPERBELLS® Yellow Chiffon Calibrachoa hybrids, Efanthia Euphorbia amygdaloides hybrid.

In raised beds:-  Efanthia Euphorbia amygdaloides hybrid, Sweet Caroline Raven, Ipomoea batatas, LUSCIOUS® Citrus Blend Lantana hybrid, SUNSATIA® Lemon Nemesia hybrid, GRACEFUL GRASSES® Purple Fountain Grass Pennisetum setaceum, SUPERTUNIA® Citrus Petunia hybrid, COLORBLAZE® Dark Star, COLORBLAZE® Kingswood Torch, COLORBLAZE® Royal Glissade and COLORBLAZE® ‘Sedona’ Solenostemon scutellarioides (Coleus). 

Window boxes on edge of raised beds: - SUPERBELLS® Dreamsicle, SUPERBELLS® Yellow, SUPERBELLS® Yellow Chiffon Calibrachoa hybrids,and Goldilocks Lysimachia nummularia.

Image © www.provenwinners.com Used with permission.

Above is an aerial view of the previous photo. Notice the abundance of plants and trees growing in the raised beds and containers. The verticality of the gazebo, trees, and tall plant on the left, deflect the visitor's gaze away from the confinement of the fence.

Image © www.provenwinners.com Used with permission.

In raised beds above:- Efanthia Euphorbia amygdaloides hybrid, Sweet Caroline Raven Ipomoea batatas, LUSCIOUS® Citrus Blend Lantana hybrid, SUNSATIA® Lemon Nemesia hybrid, GRACEFUL GRASSES® Purple Fountain Grass Pennisetum setaceum, SUPERTUNIA® Citrus Petunia hybrid, COLORBLAZE® Dark Star, COLORBLAZE® Kingswood Torch, OLORBLAZE® Royal Glissade, and COLORBLAZE® ‘Sedona’ Solenostemon scutellarioides (Coleus).

Window boxes on edge of raised beds:- SUPERBELLS® Dreamsicle, SUPERBELLS® Yellow, SUPERBELLS® Yellow Chiffon Calibrachoa hybrids, and Goldilocks Lysimachia nummularia.

Image © www.provenwinners.com Used with permission.

Plants used in various containers:- SUPERBELLS® Yellow Chiffon Calibrachoa hybrid, SUPERTUNIA® Bermuda Beach Petunia hybrid, SUPERBENA® Peachy Keen Verbena hybrid.

Window boxes: SUPERBELLS® Cherry Star and SUPERBELLS® Yellow Chiffon, Calibrachoa hybrids and ‘Sweet Caroline Sweetheart Light Green’ Ipomoea batatas.

In all of the photos above, notice the visual interest created by the contrasting textures of fabrics, wood, concrete, stone, container materials, metal, foliage and flowers. A comforting verticality, that adds to a sense of spaciousness, is supplied by upward growing plants, shrubs, trees, and a gazebo. Mood and atmosphere is enhanced by light and fire, as well as the borrowed view of the city sky line.

The colors green and terra cotta repeat throughout these urban landscapes to create a rhythmic, unifying theme, while the color and grain of the fencing timber provide richness. Only one of the above views indicates that there is a grass lawn in the distant background. However, in such a beautiful outdoor setting, grass becomes irrelevant.

Good Bye Lawn, Hello Outdoor Living Space

Image courtesy of meadowfarm.comThere has been a lot of discussion over the last few years about the declining need for a green lawn in today’s landscapes. This debate has been fueled not only by the desire to conserve water but also by the realization that changing lifestyles result in lawns that remain unused. This debate is also accompanied by the shrinkage of free time needed to care for lawns and by the toxic effect of chemicals necessary to maintain them.

Once upon a time, a lawn was a symbolic part of a private home. It included the back yard where children romped around and grew up. Today’s children don’t have the same free time to play outdoors. Many of them are enrolled in sports played on municipal properties. The result is that, for some, the back yard has become an anachronism and its maintenance a burden.

It is not uncommon to see a lawn being sliced away to create a patio or a deck or excavated to make room for a swimming pool. All of these changes, which reflect a contemporary value to live outdoors as opposed to work in the outdoors, create a need for new styles of landscaping that will soften the hard lines of wood, stone, concrete and plastic. Nature, as trees, shrubs and foliage, needs to be reintroduced into this new setting but in a more controlled and deliberate manner. In these circumstances, it’s often helpful to work with a landscape architect to create the over-all plan for one’s outdoor living space.

However, for color and passion that only flowers can evoke, it’s best to use a garden designer to add the finishing touches. The ideal balance between these two professionals is to have the landscape architect integrate the location of flowerbeds into the master plan and to allow the garden designer to fill them up. However, in determining the number of flower beds and their sizes, the needs of the client should always be elicited and never overlooked.

Many garden designers and landscape architects are so talented that when properly planned and executed, it is possible to create an outdoor living space that resembles an interactive work of art.