We recently read an interesting article about a competition winner in New York City who installed a garden of succulents on a NYC MTA bus.  The logic was this:  The average city bus has 340 square feet of roof area and the MTA in New York has a fleet of 4500 busses.  If you installed a garden on the roof of each bus that would be an additional 35 acres of green space in the city.

35 acres.  That’s a lot of green.

Why would this be important?  The obvious benefit is making things look nicer around town.  Plant life in the city also helps manage storm water, reduces the urban “heat island” effect, quiets down some of the noise of city life, and provides habitat for little critters that generally move to the suburbs.

So we began thinking about how you could add a little garden to your urban digs to contribute to a growing green.

Go vertical on your porch or window.  You can use old 2 liter bottles to create a vertical garden.

Container gardening.  One big pot+one bag of soil+one fistful of seeds=one little garden.

Build a Square Foot Garden.  A foot by a foot by a foot is a whole lot of space to a little root.

Go upstairs.  Got a little room on a flat city roof?  If you buy the right materials your garden will have little to no impact on the integrity of your roof.  The total weight of the bus garden was about 225 lbs or about the same weight of the average passenger.

Seed bomb!  You know that ugly little square of dirt outside of your house?  The one around the tree that won’t die?  Till it up and practice a little guerilla gardening!

Now that you have some ideas:  Get out there and sow!

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