Eight students worked beneath the May sun, getting

their hands dirty as they installed a garden under the direction of

Jennifer Bousselot, lecturer and Master Gardener Coordinator in the

department of horticulture.

Over the course of several days, the students applied

the lessons taught in Bousselot’s classes to complete the project.

The locale for the garden might seem surprising, nestled atop a

small section of Horticulture Hall rather than an open field.

The garden plays into a growing trend within urban

areas in the United States: green roofs. According to Bousselot,

who studied green roofing at Colorado State, the gardens serve a

wide number of purposes beyond the aesthetic appeal.

“Originally green roofs were installed to conserve

energy with their added insulation, but with modern building

materials the energy conservation isn’t as big of a benefit,” said

Bousselot. “ The number one benefit is managing water run-off,

which is a serious problem in urban areas. Green roofs help to

mitigate storm water by revegetating surfaces which used to be

natural.

Other added benefits are noise reduction in urban

areas, cooling and humidifying the immediate area, creating

biodiversity in an area traditionally lacking in any wildlife, and

reduction of dust and smog levels.

Bousselot saw the space upon arriving at ISU, and

immediately received support from the horticulture department to

utilize it for her project. The costs of the project, totaling

roughly $12,000, were covered by a grant from the Iowa Nursery

Research Corporation and a donation from a company specializing in

green roofs. The cost of this particular roof was higher than the

standard due to the limited scale size and the need to replace the

membrane of the roof itself before installation. According to

Bousselot, the standard is normally $8-15 per square foot.

Bousselot enlisted the aid of two student

organizations, the Horticulture Club and the Landscape Club, for

input on the design and assistance in installing the garden.

Miles Thompson, senior in horticulture and president

of the Landscape Club, drafted the final design for the roof.

“I had to take into consideration the different plant

possibilities that would work for a green roof application,” said

Thompson. “The plants have to be drought resistant, because

sometimes they might not get much water and they are limited from

reaching into the ground to make up for the drought.”

The garden is already being utilized as a tool in

Bousselot’s classroom, who uses pictures from the process in her

lectures and looks forward to taking students out to the accessible

roof to show their work. The group also intends to use the roof to

conduct in-house research projects to determine how well different

plants thrive in a green roof application.

Bousselot and the students already have their eyes

set on their next project “The experience has made me look into

[green roofs] quite a bit. It’s something that I’d like to continue

to pursue,” said Thompson. “We’re looking into the possibility of

another green roof on the Memorial Union, which we’ve made serious

headway on but it comes down to a matter of funding at this

point.”