Sedum matting

Posts

• wild edges Posts: 10,497

  May 2020

  I've been messing about with small scale green roofs for a while and doing a fair bit of reading about them. Sedum matting is really best for instant impact on commercial projects, although it does have other advantages. On a domestic scale, if you're happy to put some effort in, then the costs are far lower and can be almost free depending on how you want to go about it. The biggest outlay would be soil and grit but buying in bulk will save quite a bit over bagged garden centre stuff. First step is to consider the views of the roof and how much of it you will be looking at regularly. If you're only seeing parts of it or just the edges then spend the plant budget there for best effect.
  

  The pre-planted matting is like garden turf and can be really flat and bland for most of the year. This may suit the look you want but if it was me I'd want to landscape the area with some nice rocks and logs, create some mounds of deeper soil for flowering bulbs or statement alpine plants which will give year round interest. It's also a really good idea to have some flat slabs up there to walk on for maintenance. If you can find some nice natural stones for that which match the other landscaping then it looks more natural but it depends if you're going to see them. Landscaping also increases the wildlife value massively and deeper soil holds more rain water. You can even create small, shallow rain ponds up there which are great for birds and bees. The sort of thing that fills up with water after a rain storm but dries out after a few days.
  

  For plants you can post on freecycle or similar for free sedum cuttings as anyone who grows them will be over-run very quickly. Some places do sell boxes of unrooted cuttings as well though or you can buy a pot of sedums and break it into hundreds of bits to re-root. Loads of hardy sedums self-root easily and planting is as easy as throwing handfulls of cuttings onto the roof at the right time of year and letting it get on with its thing. You will need to water if it's really dry and weed for as long as it takes to mature and if debris starts to build up then it can be a good idea to sort out the worst of it. A lot of sedums are happy to grow among leaf litter and pine needles though. If you get growing now then you can get a good stock of sedums growing in pots or trays within a few months. The drawback of doing it this way is you've basically prepared a seed bed and can end up with tons of weeds growing up there which will need picking out. Sedum matting is grown very tightly and prevents this which is one real advantage to it.
  

  Basically it's a lot more fun if you treat it as a garden and mess about with the planting and structure. If things don't work it's easy to correct, just make sure you get the waterproofing done properly and protected underneath and you can do what you like on top then.
  

  
  

  If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
  

  1
• Jasmine5 Posts: 42

  May 2020

  Wow thanks wild edges, loads of detail for me there, just what I was looking for. I’ll have a good read and digest. Thanks! 😀

  0
• wild edges Posts: 10,497

  May 2020

  This is a couple of my cuttings trays. I often use broken seed trays that are heading for the bin, as long as they can hold a couple of centimetres of gritty soil they work fine. The round dish is a bit deeper, a bit closer to the soil depth on a roof, and you can see how much better the plants grow.
  

  
  

  If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
  

  0