Risks of having a roof garden

The main reason people fear rooftop gardening is because they think it would be too expensive. This is simply not the case. Especially if roof gardens are included in the budget before the building is built. Compared to the price it takes to build these buildings, the price of rooftop gardens will be a bargain. Most of the buildings in Seattle with rooftop space are multi-million dollar facilities.

Some of these buildings actually run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, so building a roof garden would only be a small fraction of the price. At Seattle University, the price of flat screens in the dorms is more than it would cost to plant sprawling gardens on all those roofs. There are so many benefits of rooftop gardens that it would be foolish to think of it as a bad investment. It would be possible to plant thousands of square feet of garden space for a four-figure investment. Consider a hundred million dollar high-rise condominium.

If they spent ten thousand dollars creating one of the most extravagant rooftop gardens to date that was open to the people who live there, it would surely increase the value of their building substantially. It’s hard to say how much, but in terms of return on investment, building that garden would be a no-brainer. Another benefit of spending the money to build a garden would be the media attention it would attract. Compared to spending money on advertising, gardens would seem cheap.

There are a few other reasons that prevent people from planting rooftop gardens. Sometimes the building structure is simply inadequate to support such weight. Other roofs may not have adequate access or drainage. Although not entirely necessary, it is much easier to build a garden on a flat surface. Having an upside-down V-shaped roof is a stumbling block for most residential homes.