Small Green Roofs: Low-Tech Options for Greener Living

Nigel Dunnett is a Reader in Urban Horticulture in the landscape department at the University of Sheffield, where he has developed innovative research programs on naturalistic and ecologically informed planting for gardens and public landscapes. He is director of The Green Roof Centre, Sheffield, and acts widely as a consultant on green roof design and planting, and sustainable garden and landscape design in general.

He writes regularly for landscape and garden publications, including Gardens Illustrated and The Garden. With Noël Kingsbury he wrote Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls; with Andy Clayden, Rain Gardens: Managing Water Sustainably in the Garden and Designed Landscape.

Dusty Gedge is a green roof campaigner and founder of livingroofs.org, an independent green roofs association that promotes vegetated roof structures in urban and rural areas. With a background in community theatre, he is passionate about nature conservation and birdwatching.

A frequent television and conference presenter on green roofs and biodiversity, he is particularly interested in teaching amateurs how to make green roofs. In 2004 he was awarded the Andrew Lees Memorial Award at the annual British Environment and Media Awards. He is currently president of the European Federation of Green Roof Associations.

John Little is a partner in The Grass Roof Company, an award-winning, eco-friendly landscape design and management company that designs and builds green-roof buildings, designs and maintains school grounds and undertakes grounds maintenance work on behalf of local authorities. He has developed a broad reputation for his innovative green-roofed small buildings for schools, gardens and community use. His turf-roofed house won Daily Telegraph self-build house of the year in 1996.

Edmund C. Snodgrass is president and founder of Emory Knoll Farms, Inc. and Green Roof Plants, North America’s first nursery specializing in green roof plants and horticultural consulting. Snodgrass collaborates on green roof research with academic institutions including Penn State University, University of Melbourne, University of Maryland, University of Auckland, and Sheffield University. A popular speaker and published author, he lectures widely and has been featured in The New York Times and on the Sundance Channel’s Ecobiz documentary series.