Taking gardening to new heights
"Aviad's rooftop garden serves not just as our apartment's source of herbs and produce, but also as a gathering place to have a beer, watch the sunset and talk about our lives," neighbor David Pflaum says. "This man has single- handedly educated us about the possibilities of urban gardening while simultaneously bringing together a diverse group of tenants that might otherwise not ever socialize beyond the simple mailroom pleasantries."
But gardening in the heights adds a complicated set of issues for the home grower to consider: Load. Weight. Drainage. Wind. Evaporation. Anyone pondering a do-it- yourself rooftop garden needs professional advice, says Ed Maurer, an associate professor of civil engineering at Santa Clara University.
"You must contact an expert on roofs ? either a roof contractor or an engineer ? who can tell you if your roof is safe. The expert can also tell you exactly what kind of load it can handle," Maurer says. "If you don't know what you are doing and are exceeding the load of the roof, you might be left with extremely costly and dangerous roof damage." Also, Maurer says: "Make sure you spend a lot of time and effort waterproofing between the bottom of your garden and the roof material, or else you will have a leaky roof on your hands."