Nicky Scott’s green roof

When I first went to Norway many years ago I really loved all the log cabins with green roofs, some even had animals grazing on them. So when I had a new shed built for me a couple of years ago, I said I wanted to have a wildflower meadow on it.

This meant making the structure stronger than normal to hold up the extra weight. I used Greenseal as the membrane rather than Norwegian birch bark. I put the poorest soil I could on top mixed with some sand and made a few little piles of stones here and there too.

I sowed all kinds of seeds up there, some annuals, including yellow rattle, biennials and some perennials too. I also planted several plants to get it going in the first year.

In Norway they even put green roofs on noticeboards and any little structure possible. It would be so lovely to see that idea taking off here.

The shed roof is alive with bees and other insects and takes very little maintenance, just a little bit of cutting back so far.

Technical details of how to build a green roof