This summer and fall, I had the opportunity to work with a wonderful client downtown on Hudson Street. I took a lot of pictures – it’s the largest garden we’ve done to date in New York, and I hope to do more.
The client had moved into this gorgeous building a year prior. Her daughter and grandchildren live on a lower floor, and she wanted to make the 1000 sf roof space into a garden for them to use. On the list of uses was family dinners, play/flex space for the grandchildren who range in age from 18 months to 14 years, a place to plant herbs and veggies in the summer, fruit bearing plants to snack on, something to screen some views, and something to discourage the smallest grandchild from the edge. In addition, the daughter of the client wanted to throw a large catered gathering yearly there – and the first one was scheduled for September 14th of 2012.
You can click on the photos below to see them expand for more detail.
The building is quite old, and land marked. As such, it had a lot of requirements about weight on the roof, where weight could be applied, and movability. Everything had to be able to be moved in case of an emergency leak. This meant lightweight planters, lightweight growing medium, and a deck that was built to be easily disassembled.
My client’s neighbor is architect Michael Schmitt, and he generously offered to design her decking for her. We talked it over, and he made adjustments to his design to accommodate my planting scheme.
The original owner had 12 fiberglass planters up on the roof, more or less scattered about. There was no irrigation system, so the plants were not in the greatest shape. Without decking, the surface was hazardous to walk on – one ended up slipping on root barrier cloth, and of course, worrying about puncturing the waterproofing. It was also hot! Black absorbs heat tremendously, and the roof was uncomfortable to be out on as well as bare feeling.
But the views were marvelous.
We got to work!
I ordered 37 fiberglass planters from Fiberglass Engineering. They promised delivery on September 7th. It would be close, but doable!
5.75 cubic yards of specially formulated lightweight growing media was ordered from a well-known company. This came out to 250 bags of soil.
Over 150 plants were ordered from an excellent nursery in Brooklyn.
The contractors installing the decking finished at the end of August, and came back to assist my team and I in getting everything from the ground level – up to the roof! 10 guys, 3 women, countless trips in the elevator, and then we formed a human chain to pass along bags of growing media up the final flight of stairs, onto the roof, around a corner, and into the patio area! It took 4 hours total to get it all upstairs, and I was extremely impressed. I had thought it was going to take all day, honestly.
By the end of the first day, we had installed half the planters.
It took a total of four days to install all the planters, fill with soil, and plant them. During that time, Life Source Irrigation came out 3 times to install piping, and drip emitters, as well as lights, in the planters. They were wonderful to work with.
Rather than get rid of all the old planters, I decided we would rehabilitate them.
I’ve been told the gala was a great success, and the client has gushed to me several times about how pleased she and her family are with the garden. I’m looking forward to teaching her grandchildren in the spring – they want to learn how to plant veggies!