A Green Oops

Green construction is a fairly new thing, and people are bound to make some mistakes. Up in St. Chuck a green roof of a parking structure collapsed as the heavy snow was melting. This particular roof was planted with native prairie species, and you have to think, guys, that bloody stuff is heavy. Clearly the architects had never had to harvest prairie biomass or collect divots of prairie sod from over 100 plots and then drag them to a car and then into a lab. If they had they would have known how heavy prairie is, especially when totally saturated. The collapse is unfortunate, but let's hope people learn from this misfortune and only plant their prairie on top of appropriately hefty structures in the future.

Going Green Vertically - A new dimension for gardens

These vertical gardens just show what some imagination can yield. Our fair city, which likes to think of itself as creative, but only by the standards of the central midwest (yawn), missed out on a great opportunity to do this with a couple of new public parking garages. The side of this overpass bridge is just great, living art, as is the green building. A couple of our buildings on campus show some potential, but mostly it's just Virginia creeper or English ivy out of control. After some generous benefactor gives us $10 million or so for a new botanical facility, its green roof can get turned on its side, and we'll make their images in plants.