I live in a small urban rowhouse with limited outdoor space. Thanks to a major renovation project I finally got my dream of a rooftop deck a little over a year ago. Last year was my first time attempting to garden up there and I'll be the first to admit I went a little bit nuts! Having a water source is absolutely critical. If there's no hose or spigot on the roof, watering will be a major pain in the @$$--and either way, the more plants, the more time watering so fewer plants in bigger pots make a big difference. Small pots will dry out far too quickly. Likewise, clay pots will dry out very quickly; use plastic pots to help minimize watering. Surprisingly, I didn't find much difference among the various potting soils I tried--plants did well in all of them, as long as I factored in (1) how wet or dry the plants wanted to be and (2) how quickly the particular mix drained. Lightweight soil mixes dry out very quickly, however. One thing that did surprise me was how much the water run-off stained our deck. One of the potting mixes (Gardener's Gold) was rather heavy and high in organic matter--great for the cannas and other tropicals but the water that ran out the bottom was dark brown and left stains. To minimize damage to a deck, perch the pots on "feet". One thing I didn't factor in was what to do when traveling; in early summer when the plants were small I could leave them for 2-3 days but by the end of summer even one day without watering would have been a disaster. Make friends with your plant-loving neighbors so they can water for you when you travel! Seek out sun, wind & drought resistant plants. On my ground-floor deck--as hot and sunny but not as windy--I grow many plants in containers, including herbs (mostly basil) in big pots with angelonia, a great combination that looks good right up until frost. Many grasses are suitable for exposed locations and on the rooftop deck, Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum' did particularly well. I was also very pleased with Gaura, which bloomed all summer. Although I didn't try any succulents, I expect sedums, portulacas and many others would do well. Cannas did surprisingly well, even once they became hopelessly potbound, but by late summer they required watering twice a day. Deep saucers to hold water helped a bit (but not as much as I hoped!). The good news was that drying out a bit didn't seem to hurt them much. Some plants loved the sun and heat but were difficult to keep watered properly--this included ornamental sweet potatoes and elephant ears. I had to keep cutting back the sweet potatoes so they wouldn't take over. Some plants did well but were ultimately so messy I won't grow them again. This included salvias and lantanas; hundreds of little flowers kept dropping all over the place and I had to keep sweeping them up. This year, I plan to grow fewer plants; I will grow the grasses and cannas again, but no lantanas or salvias (although I will miss the hummingbirds they attracted!). I will also grow plants mostly in their own pots--no more mixed containers because almost invariably, one plant would do better than the rest and crowd the other plants out. Finally, make sure you have (1) a place to sit and enjoy it, and (2) some kind of shade. These are little things but will make the rooftop so much more enjoyable. Here's a slide show documenting my rooftop deck and the plants I grew there in 2009, along with a few photos of my ground-level garden (as viewed from the deck) mixed in. Here is a link that might be useful: Rooftop deck slideshow

We are building a new home with a second floor terrace. The roof surface is a double membrane which serves as the roof for a portion of the living room below. The deck is 222 SF and faces northeast. The area will be only occasionally lightly used and we would like to put a decking that is as low maintenance as possible. We also have a limitation of just under 2 inches between the membrane and the door threshold to fit under. The two options we are currently considering are the Rubber Pavers from Carlisle here: http://www.carlisle-syntec.com/documents/ResLib/600406-CST-1120-PaversWalkways_8-28.pdf or the VAST roof decking system here: http://vastpavers.com/ Appreciate any feedback/experience you all may have.

I live in zone 6 and purchased Dee-Lish from a very a tell renowned retailer of roses. I honestly don’t recall if this is its second year in the ground or third. I purchased it bare-root late in the season for bare-root roses. I planted it as soon as I could, and it struggled. Which I thought was understandable due to the extremely hot summer weather had last year and the year before we had a very rainy summer, too much where root rot was becoming an issue to worry about happening. Luckily the last two winters were above average in temperature and only a couple of days where I would be worried due to wind and temperature. Due to the rose growing so little that by summer’s end it was way undersize and never managed to bloom or even bud.. I had this same issue with several roses last summer. All barely grew and didn’t flower as it should (they didn’t flower at all, except my favorite work horse Savanna which is a hybrid tea that I have become to love due to getting so many huge light pink blooms with little work and Pope John Paul II which I replaced 2-3 years ago due to loosing almost all my roses from one extremely cold and windy day that occurred when my plants were just breaking dormancy. It was a nightmare and very detrimental to roses, especially grafted. Own root roses have the ability to grow a new shoot. Once your grafted part is dead, it’s a loss. I tried propagating grafted roses and found they are difficult to root and keep alive. Anyways, I lost one side of Dee-Lish but one thick stem made it and it’s growing the best o have seen since purchasing. I received the rose bigger, better, and healthier and it just got smaller, struggled to survive and to my shock it made a warm Boston winter but I purchased those pop-up tents on Amazon and I couldn’t be more impressed with the results. When I checked them in early spring, I saw all living roses with green stems. I couldn’t believe that Dee-Lish, Elizabeth, and one Pope John Paul II made it. They were very small and fragile but alive so I had a chance of nursing them back to a robust healthy rose. The weather was good for growing and they have all grown almost as big as when I received them. The only roses that I continually have a difficult time getting to take/off and keeping alive is Elganza, hybrid tea rises which are supposed to be a good disease resistant cold hardy rose. All I get is little growth, very few blooms and very low growth. I have tried Elizabeth and Wedding Bells which is beautiful when it produced a total of 4 blooms over 3-4 years. I could get this rose to grow for the life of me. Tried everything. It finally died the winter that we got an early spring windy cold day. Anyone, have ant advice? I’m just a home gardener and don’t have the easiest landscape. I have a lot of rock/ledge so I had to make stone retaining walls in order to get enough depth. My soil is good in the areas I made walls but it’s sandy and dry on the Northern most side. I built a retaining wall but it gets full Sun starting very late morning until sunset. I don’t plant my roses in that area. It’s been a trial and error there. I will update Dee-Lish with pictures and maybe someone can upload their pictures so we can compare the rose and see if we are getting the same results or different.

Two very different styles so maybe think what style you want . Skillion roofs generally are a more contemporary style . As for longevity that depends on your style again. I happen to like them but I also like contemporary design so no gables for me.Heating and cooloing are always issues with high ceilings but can bea ddressed when building to minimize that problem