Green roof on house are becoming more common , but as worthful as they are in terms of insulating material , pollinator habitat and violent storm - piss reduction , being on top of the house makes them unmanageable to see and even more difficult to maintain . place one on a small backyard structure , such as a chicken coop , however , make it easier to maintain and bring beauty that you could in reality see .
Go Green
With canonic carpentry attainment and tools , you could easy establish a green roof on a chicken henhouse , dog house or a well house . Any belittled , sound anatomical structure , with 2 - by-4 - inch rafters supporting as short a span as see on a hencoop , is likely strong enough to concur the weight of a dark-green cap after a heavy rain : about 30 pounds per satisfying foot .
If an adult of about 180 pounds can fend on the coop cap without it sagging , it should be secure enough to support a 3- to 4 - in layer of fuddled , soilless medium , plants and mulch . If the roof sags , stiffen it with a layer of 3/4 - column inch pressure - treated plywood . Your supplier may be able to cut the plyboard onsite to equate the dimensions of the exist roof .
Get Started
A greenish roof design for a modern building expect complex , but for our purposes , I ’ll break away the melodic theme into three simple yet familiar concepts — a sandpile , a water garden and a container garden — to guide each step of expression .
Sandbox Stage
To keep it bare , I ’ll only verbalize about a caducous roof , which has one flat Earth’s surface . Once you understand the principle , you may apply them to a gabled ceiling , which has two flat surfaces that meet in the middle at a peak . A shed cap has a lower eave where the rainwater drops off , a top eave ( or height ) and two side eaves . The roof should have a placid aerofoil , be it made of planks , plyboard or shingles .
You ’ll create and instal what looks like a sandbox of rot - resistant 2 - by-4s made of true cedar , redwood or insistency - treated wood that have been screwed together to make a frame to hold the soilless media , just as a sandbox defy Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin . Your sandbox should catch one’s breath on the outermost edges of the caducous cap so the outside dimensions of the corner should cope with the outside dimensions of the caducous cap .
Attach the sandpit with 2 - in screws spaced every 4 to 8 inch come up through the underside of all four eaves . This agency , the sandpit will be firm attached , but there wo n’t be any penetrations of the roof over the hencoop .
Water Garden Stage
Now , as if you were creating a water garden , line the interior of the sandbox with one piece of rubber pond liner that ’s heavy enough to flow over all the top sharpness of the sandpile anatomy . This will keep H2O from reaching the original roof . start the liner over the top boundary of the sandbox while fold the corner bland . Use 1/2 - inch staples to impound the lining on the away boundary of the sandpile . Do n’t staple the bottom of the liner because that would make leaks into the coop .
Next , use a keen tongue or scissors to rationalize off any extra liner beyond the staple . finally , the spreading plants in your green cap will flow over the edge of the sandbox and pass over the descent , get it less seeable while also making the roof more attractive .
Container Garden Stage
Now you may see that a dark-green chicken coop ceiling is essentially like a wide , flat container forpotted plants , except it does n’t have a drainage jam . But that ’s OK , because the best plants for a gullible ceiling are sedum . ( If you need to mature a wide-eyed range of plants , you ’ll need to allow for drain , but that ’s beyond the telescope of this article . ) Strangely , these evergreen succulents can treat grow in soil that is either very teetotal or very wet . The widely - ramble stipulation will also inhibit most — but not quite all — weeds . If you require to try other industrial plant that ca n’t handle retentive - full term slopped conditions , embed them near the in high spirits side of the ceiling .
Next , spread a 3 - inch layer of soilless media composed of one part compost , one part sand and two partsPermaTill , which is a lightweight expanded slate that admit water , tune and nutrients . If you ca n’t get PermaTill , employ an equivalent amount of composted pine bark or charcoal .
instal sedums 8 to 16 in apart . Some vendors take sedums in sheets , which can be plant along a roof ’s top bound ; finally , they ’ll transmigrate downhill to address the roof . Mulch plants with an in of organic material that wo n’t swim away in the rain , such as rip up hardwood bark mulch . Keep sedums water for the next six to 12 months until established .
A Word About Plants
The standard plant choices for fleeceable roofs have been foreign-born , low - grow sedums because they can handle drouth and implosion therapy ; are evergreen ; can take full sunshine ; and rarely have pest problems . I used strawberry mark begonia ( Saxifraga stolonifera ) in improver to nativeSedum ternatumfor a shaded kennel I built in North Carolina . Both have taken well to these problematic condition . Obviously , plants chosen for greenish roof need to live with minimum maintenance , but a unripened chicken coop ceiling that can be tend from the ground without having to bend over could be garden with a wider range of plants .
A Word About Chickens
Some chickens will eat sedums and will scratch up the plants and damage the root word if allow to get on top of the roof . To keep them grounded , check that there is n’t anything that would playact as a run or wild leek to the roof . You might also consider clipping their wings once a yr . The immature roof is mostly for your welfare and not for the chickens . They ’re better off enjoying a unripened story of plants and bugs anyway .
This clause originally ran in the March / April 2017 government issue ofChickens .
