Give me a drink!

We have just had our driest spring since records began, or something like that, and the living roof is really feeling the pain. Well, to be precise, one half of it (the bit in the shade) looks wonderful - the essence of an English meadow - and the other half looks like it’s been nuked.

Despite having more than 100mm of soil and little water storage “tanks” underneath, there just has not been enough rain and too much direct (evaporative) sunshine on the non-shaded part of the roof. I took the hose up once, but have since decided that was a stupid thing to do and that I just have to let be what will be.

We’ll keep an eye on it and see what happens. It may be that the best thing for a half-sunny/half-shady roof is to plant each area differently. Sedum is much more drought-tolerant, so that may be the answer.