Rooftop Pollinator Garden
Boulder, CO
This award-winning residential green roof garden fulfilled the client’s dream of looking out her bedroom window into a living rooftop of flowering native plants and grasses frequented by local birds, butterflies and bees. K. Dakin Design made this dream a reality, selecting climate adapted plantings that would appeal to wildlife visitors. In addition to creating beauty and habitat, this green roof absorbs and slows the runoff of storm water on the home site, which dips below grade in a bathtub shape and is prone to flooding.
We worked with the landscape contractors to devise several ways for water to drain: dry wells planted with wetland and moisture-loving plants; swales that guide water away from the house; a natural steel retaining wall and channels for water runoff. Drainage was both a challenge and an opportunity on the site, leading us into deeper collaborations with other consultants and allowing us to consider how water runoff could add beauty to the site and benefit the landscape. This project won the 2019 award for residential projects from Green Roofs for Healthy Cities.
More about this project in “Backyard Biodiversity.”
Project collaborators
