The Strawtron roof is lookin’ good and green these days

When we built our two story timber frame & straw bale house in 2012-13, we incorporated a green roof into the design. It was a hell of a task to pull it off, especially since we loaded all the soil onto the surface of the roof one bucket at a time. Sadly, we never stuck around long enough before moving to Kentucky to see the roof flourish with plant life. Thankfully, it’s doing pretty well these days.

Recently, I got a few photos from friends and I’m happy to report that the green roof is indeed just that — full of plant life and kickin’.

I’m not sure what kinds of plants have decided to take up residence way up there, but whatever they are I’m glad they’re there. When we built this roof, we used loose soil since we didn’t have a source of sod. We seeded it a couple of times and hoped for the best. Mulching the roof in the fall of 2014 made a big difference for getting plants established, I think — before that the soil was too exposed for plants to do really well. The roof only has about 4″ of topsoil, so it dried out fairly quickly, of course.

Strawtron in spring of 2016… with a very green roof!

I’ve said it before, but this is probably our one and only two story living roof project… what a harrowing experience it was. I’m glad the effort seems to be paying off now, though!

Image credits: top photo from Javi Gil of JGilOrganic.com, bottom: Kyle Yoder