Up above the land so high: Roof top gardening

My ancestors are farmers, I am a farmers son, I love plants, Gardening is my passion exclaimed many with happiness. Many people yearn to go back to the days where one could grow, nurture and produce ones own food. Plucking a ripe juicy tomato from its lentils and then savoring it would simply spell heaven for most of the urbanites. Living amidst lifeless concrete walls and a culture so dismal and monotonous has left the urban gardener deficit of the term gardening. Urban life has its own shortcomings like lack of recreational space, time and energy to dedicate to other things out side the robotic system but it does have technology that spits out solutions to an assortment of circumstances and hassles that one experiences in his routine life. The Numero-Uno solution to this unfathomable fondness of city dwellers towards gardening is nothing but Terrace or Roof top gardening. A roof top garden means a garden on the roof or terrace of a building. It is the most cost effective and lucrative form of gardening which in the recent years has developed as a subject of study and also as a key answer to numerous other problems faced by the 21st generation city people. Building a roof top garden requires very less space, good fertile soil, a well detailed plan and an earnest initiative to institute a green, blossoming and flourishing garden. It is easy to build and maintain and can also serve as a substitute kitchen garden for those who wish to relish their own fruitage says Jayaraman, owner and proprietor of R.R Gardens (specializing in Rooftop Gardening). Urban form of gardening due to its new methodologies, techniques, and principles has been able to mark a separate niche of its own. Roof top gardening has opened doors to various unknown areas of study, it has helped the common gardener to horn his gardening skills as well as to accumulate knowledge on various stratas of gardening and its impact on social life says S. Anand, Education Officer, WWF-India. Different gardening techniques like Bonsai, Grafting, and Budding are used in Terrace Gardens to limit the growth of the trees to the accessible space as well as to bear fruits at a tender age; this increases the aesthetic sense as well as the productivity of the garden.

Roof top gardens assist in various vital purposes; it helps to curtail soaring temperatures in the surrounding environment by transpiring and removing the heat absorbed by walls, roads, due to insulation. It also helps in delaying and reducing rain run off and makes available the rain water to other needs says J. Anushiya a Ph.D research scholar on Climate and Urban Natural Resources at Anna University, Guindy. Roof top Gardening has become so prominent, that now days it has achieved the status of being called a trend more than a crop growing system. Posh Hotels and malls have started to incorporate Terrace gardens on a sprawling area of 10,000-20,000 square feet. Terrace gardens have turned into an element of structural design rather than serving the sole purpose of a garden says Senthil Kumar, an Architect and the owner of a Private construction company. Living in a Metropolitan and having a garden in our very own home could not have been a leeway till date, but not any more, Roof top gardening not only fulfills the hope of having an exquisite garden in our home but also helps and teaches us to live a life in harmony with Mother Nature.