Condo Living: Ah, There's the Shrub
OK, SO TREE-LINE BACKYARDS and beds of American Beauty roses may always be reserved for suburban yards. But condo dwellers don’t necessarily have to live in a plant- and flower-free zone. Green roofs, container gardens and even window boxes can inject a little bit of nature into the most urban of settings.
A roof deck where owners can cultivate their own patch of green is a huge selling point among condo buyers, as Rosemary Reed, 59, found out when she and her husband moved from their house in Woodley Park to a two-bedroom condo in Dupont Circle in 2006.
“The deck is one of the reasons we bought it, though it was dark and in terrible shape,” says Reed, a Nebraska native and self-described “farmer’s daughter.” In fact, her sister works as the city gardener back home in Lincoln.
After painting the wooden surface of the deck a few steps up from the dining area a silvery white so it would reflect light and heat more effectively, Reed began to craft her urban oasis with plants and, recently, a small tree.
“The plants have to be tough to live up here,” says Reed. “It gets really bright and hot.” One bonus: a light-colored roof means that the building systems won’t have to work so hard to stay cool during the dog days so plentiful during D.C. summers.
Tim Cain, who runs his own graphic design firm in Great Falls, Va., recently moved from a condo in Tysons Corner where he cultivated a veritable farmer’s market of produce, all on his deck. These days, he’s busy establishing new plants at his new home in Great Falls.
“I grew tomatoes, cherry and grape and larger ones,” says Cain, 40. “I grew bell peppers and all kinds of hot peppers, which I would dry and use through the winter. And I grew some green onions, though they didn’t do so well.” Also in his mini-plots: herbs like rosemary and basil.
Cain raised all those veggies in a combination of hanging baskets and terra-cotta pots and tubs. “The vines would grow and grow, and sometimes hang over my railing.” His neighbors in the unit below even enjoyed picking some of the produce, with Cain’s blessing.
What’s the trick to cultivating everything from asters to zucchini without a bona fide backyard? Choose plants that thrive in harsh conditions, says Cain. “Tomatoes, for one, are very hardy,” he says. “You have to keep everything very well watered. Plus, I am a firm believer in Miracle-Gro.”
Some condo developers in the D.C. area have taken the urban oasis concept a few steps further by “greening” the roofs of their buildings.
Used for centuries in Europe and elsewhere, green roofs are covered or partially covered with low-maintenance plants to blunt the effects of extreme temperatures. Thought to increase the energy efficiency of a building, they also & “pay for themselves in the long run in the form of reduced utility bills,” says Gail Montplaisir, president of D.C.’s Taurus Development Group, a residential and commercial building company. “Green roofs act as insulation from heat and cold, and they protect the roof membrane. The biggest factor [in aging roofs] is UV-ray damage, so green roofs last much longer.”
The building that Montplaisir lives in, City Overlook on Belmont Street NW, is one that Taurus built. Half of its roof has been greened with plants like spruce stonecrop, whose scientific name is sedum reflexum “Blue Spruce.” Sedums are a resilient genus of plant that, due to their ability to tolerate drought and filter pollution, are well-suited to green roof use.
In addition, green roofs capture and store rain, reducing the amount of storm water runoff leaving a site. This can help minimize the amount of untreated polluted storm water spewing into local streams and rivers.
D.C. Greenworks, an environmental restoration service company and nonprofit that trains and employs at-risk young adults to install and maintain green roofs and rain barrels, has worked on several condo buildings in the area, from Alexandria‘s Cromley Lofts to D.C.’s City Overlook.
Sedums and other succulent plants like iceplant and talinum are ideal for green roofs, says Sarah Murphy, green roof coordinator at D.C. Greenworks. So are chives, surprisingly: “Onions, in general, have bulbs underground that store energy. They don’t need a lot of water, and they add visual interest” to the landscape of a green roof. Tempting though it may be to fantasize about lolling on a verdant carpet under the stars, grass requires tons of water to thrive and as such is not a wise green-roof choice.
Owners at the General Scott at Scott Circle in Northwest, built in 1941, are considering making their roof green. The biggest drawback is the up-front expense of installing one, which could cost thousands of dollars, or more if the building is large or the work required to prepare the roof for the additional weight is significant. Montplaisir (who is not working on the General Scott project) notes that, in older buildings like the General Scott, costly reframing and other structural alterations may be required to ensure that trusses are adequate to support the additional weight of that carpet of plants and soil (see box).
Still, condo owners — especially those with healthy bank account balances — would be wise to take the long view. The prevailing belief is that green roofs eventually pay for themselves in the form of fewer roof replacements in ensuing decades and lower utility bills, in addition to that old helping-save-the-planet thing.
John Fossum, an analyst with the U.S. government, compares greening a roof with putting sunscreen on it. A condo owner at the General Scott, he chairs the roof committee at the 66-year-old building.
“This is not as simple as ripping off a bunch of shingles,” says Fossum, 32, who also says the committee is consulting with an architect, structural engineers and others to assess whether and how to proceed with a green roof.
While he admits the project is taking longer than he initially thought it would, and while no one is certain what the final cost will be to green the roof, Fossum remains enthusiastic. “We’re all familiar with the benefits of a green roof,” he says. Fossum says his ancestors from Norway were avid green-roof builders.
Many owners, Fossum says, are excited about not only a green roof’s ability to enhance their condo’s resale value, but also because of the satisfaction of helping to foster a healthier environment quite literally under their own roof. And access to a pretty patch of green from which to survey the city below sure doesn’t hurt.
Written by Express contributor Amy Rogers Nazarov
Photos by Marge Ely/Express; Jeff Franko courtesy Cromley Lofts
