More Grasses for Green Roofs

This post is a doubly happy one. Input from one of our favorite customers has expanded our offerings for green roof plants. How’s that for teamwork?

Landscape architect Kathryn Ancaya recently reviewed our plants for green infrastructure chart when we asked about her go-to grasses. Kate is co-founder of Living Roofs, an award-winning company specializing in the design, installation, restoration, and maintenance of green roofs throughout the Southeast. They’ve been in business since 2006 and have been buying from us for 10 years.

Based on their experience, Kate suggested additions to our list of grasses and sedges for green roofs. Back when we introduced our green infrastructure (GI) chart in 2015, we listed just a few grasses for green roofs. We went with those that had solid backing for inclusion, knowing that there could well be others that would work. And that’s where input from customers like Living Roofs makes a difference. Their company has hands-on experience with our grasses, and they maintain and follow up on projects.

We’re delighted to add these plants to our recommendations for green roofs:

–Deschampsia cespitosa*

–Eragrostis spectabilis

–Juncus tenuis

–Muhlenbergia capillaris

–Carex texensis

We’ve updated our green infrastructure chart and our plant database search. As with any list, it’s not a magic bullet. You’ll still need to match your climate and site conditions to the plants. But this expanded list is a great place to start.

A big thanks to Kate and the team at Livings Roofs for their input and their work in making our communities greener and more resilient!

Do you have suggestions for updating our information? We’d love to hear from you at HNIWeb@hoffmannursery.com.

*We’re adding the cultivar ‘Goldtau’ as well.

Update 11/9/21: Kate also noted Deschampsia flexuosa as one of her favorites. Because it wasn’t part of our regular production schedule, it didn’t show up on our lists. But we have special crops coming available late winter and mid-spring of 2022. That’s great news—it’s now back on our list, and you can get it!