We at Sky Garden are multi-award winners with over 20 years’ experience in the green roof industry, having become founding members of the Green Roof Organisation (GRO) in 1996. Through this time we have grown with the industry and have installed some of the biggest and most innovative green roof systems in the world. We are reaching out to you to help you realise your green infrastructure goals.

With climate change now top of the agenda, development proposals are including ever more green credentials. Sky Garden are great advocates of the environmental benefits of green roof systems and are becoming more and more involved with blue roof infrastructure to help manage urban drainage issues in built up areas. Vegetation surfaces naturally retain water via infiltration for growth and processes within the plant, the soil also absorbs and keeps water for a period. This significantly reduces surface runoff rates from a green roof system compared to traditional roofs, subsequently reducing the amount of water reaching the already pressured drainage systems in the UK.

There are many more benefits to a green roof system compared to the traditional roof used. One driver for green roof systems is the reduction of the urban heat island effect. The reason behind the reduction of the UHI is that green roofs have lower solar insolation rates compared to urban surfaces. This creates lower surface temperatures that will generate a cooler localised climate within the vicinity of the green roof.

In addition, green roof systems improve biodiversity in an area because the system is reintroducing or creating a habitat which urban areas had previously destroyed. Furthermore, they form natural ecological corridors for various animals to travel from one green space to another, or even a nearby protected area.

Here at Sky Garden we also grow all of our own living material. Our sedum blanket, which contains 13 species of sedum to maximise biodiversity, is grown at our production facility in the Cotswolds. We also produce our own Wildflower blanket which contains 30 species of native wildflowers. We are the largest independent grower of sedum in the UK.

By Ben Howkins – Contracts Manager