Having spent a few weeks in Bern Switzerland, I was intrigued by the roof top gardens on some of the houses in the downtown distric. The plantings were actually integrated into the roof structure, with grasses covering entire roof lines.

These roof top gardens are nothing new to California. Henry Kaiser, as early as the 1960's added a rooftop garden to the parking structure attached to his hi rise in Oakland, Ca so that he would not have to look at a parking garage. William McDonough also introduced a rolling roof line that mimicked the grass hills near the Gap Headquarters, and Renzo Piano's new California Academy of Science will include a rather large organic roof garden. G-Sky, a Canadian based company has introduced a series of kits that allow both consumers as well as corporate clients to create roof top gardens with easy to create systems.

The Sky Garden system in particular allows you to integrate small trees and shrubs onto rooftops allowing you to create natural environments (as shown in some of the courtyard photos) in areas not usually considered to be suitable for landscaping. These roof gardens help mitigate heat zones, add to the natural oxygen production, and keep buildings cooler during the summer.

The newest system allows you to also create vertical gardens on building exteriors, such as the image below.

The Sky Garden adds layer of humanity to most modern environments. It softens edges while keeping design crisp. As more of these kits become more commercially available, look for more sky gardens to be gin growing near you.

For more information visit www.g-sky.com