Intensive Versus Extensive Roof Garden

However the gardendrain component has a taller profile and is filled with expanded aggregate to provide greater water storage and to support a greater depth of growing.

Intensive versus extensive roof garden.

Intended for recreational sporting and leisure purposes they are often indistinguishable from at grade landscapes. Intensive green roofs. An intensive assembly follows the same design concept as an extensive assembly. The landscape possibilities with an intensive garden roof assembly are virtually limitless.

There are two general types of green roofs. Intensive gardens are heavier and more expensive. The distinction is based on the kind of plant involved. Intensive systems allow the designer to create a park like setting so they are the best option for roof gardens that will be occupied.

For existing homes glazer recommends the extensive roof garden. Intensive green roofs weigh from 35 pounds to beyond 100 pounds per square foot when dry it is all a matter of the soil depth which is affected by the amount of mounding that is used. A semi intensive green roof can give rise to a richer ecology with more diverse plant and animal species. The plants that are mostly used on extensively planted roofs include grasses mosses herbs and succulents.

This deeper soil allows intensive roofs to accommodate large plants and dramatic plant groupings. Intensive includes a thick layer of soil that can support large vegetation such as small trees. Typically these roofs will have more soil and some small shrubs as well as the low growing wildflowers and sedums found on an extensive roof. Typically extensive green roofs strive for environmental benefits cooling and stormwater management prime among them over human amenity space.

An extensive green roof is characterized by a thinner layer of soil and smaller plants. Intensive planting there are two ways of planting a roof. It also allows for a formal garden to be installed with paths grass lawn and flowers or pot plants. Intensive garden roof assembly.

Extensive roof gardens are lighter cheaper and shallower. Vegetative roofs are divided into two categories. Their depth can range up to 2 feet or more depending on the weight constraints of the roof. The intensive green roof uses planting mediums that have greater depth than the extensive green roof.

Intensive green roofs commonly thought of as garden roofs are the more complex of the two exhibiting much greater plant diversity and a greater need for design expertise says peck. Green roofs with more than 6 inches of media are considered intensive. If you increase that planting depth by a foot or two though a whole new realm of possibility opens up.