This helps extensive green roofs to be well-suited for roofs with little load bearing capacity. They are shallow and covered with low-growing grasses, herbs, or succulents. These green roofs are typically maintained at only 3 to 5 inches high and are not usually irrigated. They primarily function as an ecological protection layer, such as a filter for stormwater. They have shallow soils or other growing media that are well-suited for low-growing plants like Sedum and other succulent species. The designation depends on their depth, type of vegetative cover, and function.Įxtensive green roofs are low-maintenance. Over all, the natural vegetation dynamic creates biodiversity and makes extensive Green Roofs more resilient to Climate Change.Green roofs are designated as extensive, semi-intensive, or intensive. Sedum-only extensive green roofs require 50-80% more maintenance than a divers extensive greening with natural vegetation dynamic. If there is the desire to retain or keep a certain vegetation palette, a specific vegetation pattern or a regular full-scale flowering of its vegetation, additional maintenance efforts are necessary with an appropriate supply of nutrients. Plant species migrate or new plants species settle. The vegetation on extensive green roofs is subject to natural reshuffling. The specific weight of water is the same around worldwide. Since all Green Roofs are supposed to retain water (for the plants), the weight of a system mainly depends and varies on the amount of water within the system. After all, plants care about the porosity of materials, Air-to-Water Ratio, and nutrient exchange capacity to name a few. In fact, plants do not care about the weight. In general, the weight of any Green Roof system is not a quality criteria. Because of the shallow profile, extensive Green Roofs also add less weight to a structure than deeper system. temperate climate zones with Gulf Stream influence, like northern Europe. Although there are shallower extensive Green Roof systems on the market, they are only resilient in specific climate zones. Typically, the system depth for an extensive Green Roofs rages from 4 to 6 inches (10 cm to 15 cm). Thus extensive Green Roof require low maintenance and have no permanent installed irrigation system, because it would defeat the purpose. Additionally, it is characterized by moos, succulent (Sedum), and small herbaceous plants including drought tolerant grasses. With our website we try to shine light into this information jungle, because we were there from the beginning.Īn extensive Green Roof is home for plants with special adaption to extreme site conditions and high regeneration capacity. But still there are many misconceptions, myths and misleading information about extensive Green Roofs. Meanwhile, extensive Green Roofs are the epitome of the term 'Green Roof'. More over, this is the time and place where Jörg Breuning was a part of this movement. Hence, this is also the place where this idea literally grew from seed and was perfected in the 1980's. Although, extensive Green Roofs only partially restore the environmental footprint of a structure, it is proven to be the most efficient and most natural.įor instance, the city of Stuttgart in Germany has over 100 Million square feet of extensive Green Roofs in a 30 mile radius from the city center. Certainly, it is the most cost effective and most natural infrastructure to reduce stormwater run-off from buildings at the source. An Extensive Green Roof represents a natural form of vegetation that is largely self-sustaining and evolving.

Extensive green roofs