The days where environmentalists were perceived as young and idealistic are at best gone. In most cases they were seen to be nuisance to developers. Fortunately for us, environmentalists today are seen as visionaries, the forerunners of this consumer plagued society.
The reason I mention these old times is because recently, I recalled an article I read several years ago about roof top gardening in the US (I think it was in Manhattan). When I first read about this idea, I thought it was ridiculous: how do you plant, maintain and irrigate a garden placed on the roof top of an office building, or just a regular block of flats?
After the short research I conducted, I found out that this idea is flourishing all over the world, as well as here in London. I don't want to write a "how-to" guide, as I you can find much more than a handful of sites that explain everything you need to know. I just wish to emphasise the sheer importance of these beautiful market gardens both to the gardeners themselves, who enjoy the food they grow and by that get a deep sense of meaning to their deeds; and to the neighbours, who are surely encouraged by the initiative of the individual and find themselves swept away into the daily efforts to improve their immediate surroundings in their apartment block.
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a nice idea indeed, but how do you implement it in all those City dull office buildings, not to mention the Gherkin?
ReplyDeleteand how do you garden a roof in all those red-tile row houses?
in holland they have these market gardens (volkstuinen) at the city outskirts, and that really works well.