A green roof is a roof completely covered in vegetation. These help with energy costs, water absorption, habitat creation, and can help attract pollinators!
Benefits of Pollination
Promotion of biodiversity
Aids the stability of the ecosystem
Inceases agricultural productivity
Our Goal
Promote a habitat that attracts pollination and can be sustained in an urban setting, such as on top of a building.
We would like to turn the existing Mackinac Hall Green Roof into a pollinator habitat. While the current green roof does a great job at what it was built for, it could be even greater by becoming a habitat for pollinators.
We would like to do this by adding flowers and other plants that would attract pollinators to the area. Some of the plants we want to use are shown below. In adding these plants, we can draw in pollinators to the area that would not only thrive on the food source of the green roof, but stay in the area and pollinate other plants that are in need of pollination.
One thing we would like to include in this plan is water reservoirs that catch any extra precipitation not absorbed by the plants and from other parts of the roof. Sprinklers can be placed on the green roof that draw from this extra water when there has not been any recent precipitation in order to water the flowers.
While the green roof itself isn't in dire need of renovation, it could be renovated with plants that will help attract pollinators and draw the attention of students.
Sedum album
aka white stonecrop
Sempervivum
aka houseleeks
Sedum kampschaticum
aka gold sebum
Thymus serpyllum
aka creeping thyme
Coreopsis lanceolata
aka Lance-leaved Coreopsis
Echinacea purpurea
aka Purple Coneflower
Rudbeckia Hirta
aka Black-eyed Susan
Asclepias Tuberosa
aka Butterfly weed
We would like to make informational packets available for students to look at while looking at the green roof and include information about the flowers shown above and the importance of pollinators and green roofs.
Not only would this green roof provide a great source of pollen for organisms who need it, it would also serve as a teaching tool for the public.
This flower works well in the green roof due to its resilience and is a great option for attracting pollinators
Pollinator habitats are important because they help supply food and shelter to local pollinators. This will help encourage them to stay in the area and pollinate other plants that are in need
Green roofs are important because they help with insulation and keep down energy costs. In addition, they help absorb some access rain water to prevent runoff
Christina helped inform us about different kind of plants that would be suitable, not only for a pollinator habitat, but that would also fare well on a green roof.
Scott helped to inform us about GVSUs campus budgets and how GVSU does have a budget for things such as this, but made note to us that these budget proposals can be competitive.
Yumi helped us by pointing out that a great resource for our plants could be Hortech because they do live roofs.
Nicholas Keller
Mailyn Miller
Lily Snyder
Stella Kohlhoff
Potts, S., Imperatriz-Fonseca, V., Ngo, H., Aizen, H., et al. (2016). Safeguarding pollinators and their values to human well-being. Nature, 540, 220-229. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature20588
Rowe, L., Gibson, D., Landis, D. A., & Isaacs, R. (2021). Wild bees and natural enemies prefer similar flower species and respond to similar plant traits. Basic and Applied Ecology, 56, 259–269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2021.08.009