Rooftop Grass Growing Fast

Enjoying a rooftop garden is nothing new. We have advocated the benefits of rooftop gardens since the early days of the Artificial Grass Blog and our post back in May 2007 ‘Roof Gardens: A Cool Lifestyle In A Hot City’ has been one of the most popular to date.

Looking beyond the UK and indeed beyond Europe to countries much further afield where hot climates prevail, there has recently been a significant increase in rooftop garden construction.

Take South Korea for example. In Seoul, building owners can get up to 70% of the cost of creating a roof garden as a subsidy from the local government which has been promoting ‘green Seoul’ projects since as far back as 2002. Many office workers in the city benefit from this, opting to take a relaxing break or even hold some of their meetings in the more pleasant surroundings that their building’s roof garden offers.

The therapeutic benefits of roof gardens in Seoul are not restricted to office workers though. Hospital patients are also able to enjoy them, a good example of that being Eunpyeong Hospital in Seoul which has built a rooftop garden on the top of their building specifically for use by its patients. According to a spokesperson for the hospital the garden “can help patients stay in an emotionally comfortable condition and have a positive mind … the green environment is especially helpful for those suffering from depression.” Read the full article here

Full Of Glee - Artificial Grass Success

We're approaching the time when people are inclined to look back at the year and reflect on events. Where Artificial Grass Ltd is concerned, we are delighted to say that 2007 has been a great year. Our thanks go to all our customers, distributors, stockists and installers as well as the AGL team and our UK factory.

March saw the company's launch into the residential market for artificial grass sales and the summer months saw a veritable queue of new distributors asking to sign up to the AGL network; in July our artificial grass products received favourable UK national tabloid press coverage and in and September the company made its first major Trade Show appearance at the Glee Trade Show. Staged at one of the UK's largest event facilities, the NEC in Birmingham, the Artificial Grass Ltd exhibition stand received many visitors over the 3 days.

The variety of visitors and the range of applications for which they were interested in using artificial grass surprised even ourselves - and that's saying something!

Here are some examples:

• Landscapers


• Homeowners - lawns, small putting greens, city life use such as roof garden terrraces


• Shops - for window dressing and displays


• Construction companies - for everything from housing development gardens, roadside verges to swimming pool surrounds


• TV Shows

The results from the trade show have been impressive - new stockists and distributors signing up, new orders placed and one contact resulted in a TV Garden Makeover that included artificial grass made in our factory. Screened in early October, the programme had many viewers resulting in a rush of enquiries about the artificial grass lawn which was featured.

Bringing 2007 to a close is our new artificial grass product Snow Grass - its launch could not have been better timed for Santa's Grottos and Christmas shop displays. Whether your Christmas is a white one or not, may we wish all our customers, distributors and website visitors a very Happy Christmas!

On The Verge Of Success With Artificial Grass

Green roadside verges in Britain may be a thing of the past before long thanks to global warming. As we all know, grass is only green with a regular supply of rain or water and when the inevitable hosepipe bans are introduced this summer, it will be the lack of water for our lawns and gardens that most of us think of. The thousands of miles of Britain's green grass verges will not get a second thought and will face a summer of drying out and yellowing. Traffic roundabouts and perimeter grassed areas of car parks and supermarkets as well as inner city public parks and walkways will also face the same fate. Local councils and organisations responsible for the maintenance of these verges and grassed areas will be hard pressed to do much about it.

Q: What's the answer? Q: Artificial Grass

These key features make it ideal for this application:

• green
• permeable
• hard wearing
• needs no watering
• virtually maintenance free

Other countries are well ahead of Britain in implementing the use of artificial grass for roadside verges and perimeter grass areas, particularly in hotter climates where the arid conditions rarely if ever give rise to natural grass growing. The photo above shows a roadside verge in Oman where artificial grass produced in our factory has been used to create a luscious, all year round, maintenance-free series of roadside verges. Public response has been overwhelmingly in favour of the new idea and we expect more similar orders to follow.

Roof Gardens - A Cool Lifestyle In A Hot City

During the height of the summer the streets of London can become unbearably hot and sticky. You long for an ice cream or a cool drink and somewhere shady to sit and catch a breeze. For the lucky residents who have access to a flat roof there is now an important alternative solution. More and more home owners are building roof gardens or green roofs to help them live in style during the hot weather.

Although there are examples from the earlier part of the 20th century, it was not until the 1960’s that the use of roof gardens began to literally grow upwards. As well as having an amenity value, a roof garden offers substantial environmental benefits - for instance:

1. It can lower the temperature above a building, often substantially. Basically a city can raise the atmospheric temperature by reflecting sunlight - a phenomenon sometimes referred to as 'the urban heat island effect'. Having a green roof helps counteract this.
   


2. Insulation - a roof garden can help keep a building cool in summer and warm in winter, so fuel bills are reduced.
   


3. Wildlife - even on high rise apartment blocks a green garden can provide a stopover for tired birds and attract insects with plants.

If you want to enjoy the lifestyle which comes with a proper roof garden there are 2 choices:

The “Heavyweight” Route
This involves layers of waterproof membrane, constructing drainage channels if needed and then laying natural turf over the top. Of course, you could venture into hydroponics to try and minimise the weight and there are special soil mixtures available to help but basically you are looking at a lot of weight , a lot of installation work and possibly even strengthening the roof.

The "Lightweight" Route
Use planter pots, tubs and bedding to carry your plants and lay artificial grass. This way you will have less maintenance and the whole project will be easier to construct. Not only that, but all the worries about how you compost grass cuttings 10 stories up won't even cross your mind!

Many city dwellers are already doing this with the likes of Lord Linley setting a headlining example when he had artificial grass installed on the roof garden of his central London residence.

So next time you are trying to catch a breeze in a hot dusty city, look up .... you'll probably see beautiful roof gardens offering a cool solution to a busy city life.