The most hostile environment for plants in my garden is the gravel on top of my flat garage roof. At least technically.  But since it’s been planted up with tough alpines, then there never really seemed to be a problem until this year.

The Summer was incredibly hot and dry so plants did die whilst we were away in August leaving gaps to be re-filled with new plants. It seemed a mixed blessing since the obvious thugs survived but were knocked back a little bit.

But then the weather got colder and very wet and a crack appeared in the roof of my garage with a drip.

In a bit of a panic, I called a roofer last seen five years ago asking for help. To be honest he was rather elderly when he last came round so I was mainly expecting  him to refer me to someone else but when he suggested that he come around and take a look, I wasn’t going to say no. 

John is in his 70s and has obviously worked hard all his life, mainly on the roofs of London. He is a big burly bloke, rather unsteady on his feet and the sight of him up a ladder is the most terrifying thing I’ve seen in a long time. He looks like he’s going to fall off the ladder at every single step up or down. And when he’s firmly on the ground, he looks like he’s about to die of a heart attack at any moment.

So he came around and made a temporary repair to the bitumen on the built in drain on the roof in the hope that it was the source of the problem.  Aside from worrying about him as he climber the ladder, the sight of him with a blow torch waving backwards and forwards near his legs was just too much to watch. We all hid on the opposite side of the house to avoid watching in fascination, sending one of th family over at regular intervals to make sure he was still alive and unhurt. 

A few days later and with a continuing leak, it became apparent that the entire roof would need to be re-sealed, a job that would require us to strip the plants from the roof, reseal the top and then replant.

So now I find myself, plants stripped, roof resealed and about to re-stock the roof. Most of the larger plants can just be sat back on top, but it’s also given me a chance to rearrange things to a more relaxed, less structured lay-out. It has taken just two days, and aside from the annoyance of people suggesting it might be due to the planting has been remarkably trouble free.

The hot weather followed by the cold and wet has most probably created a small amount of subsidence and the garage has flexed as a result, creating a crack that water has found and followed through. Two days into the process, and I’m wondering how best to lay out the plants and in some cases, their surprisingly huge root systems.

So the blue grasses are now in one large central island, with the thugs of the garden located at the corners of the central bed ready to march onwards into the middle as they inevitably will. The less thug like survivors have been placed in the beds around the sides of the roof, those still marked out by wooden boxes. Hopefully the wooden boxes will provide some protection from the root systems of the thugs and by marking out their territory, might encourage me to some weeding.

Most of the gravel removed will just go straight back onto the roof into roughly the same area as it was taken from. It is full of the bulbs planted over the years and of plants now dormant for Winter. It is also rather full of weeds after a year where the roof has been largely abandoned to its own devices.

So we will have to wait through the year to see what plants (whether deliberately planted or weeds) turn up and grow. The weeds can always be dug up or sprayed out of existence. Hopefully by putting the gravel back into roughly the same spot, we won’t end up with a very uneven spread of spring bulbs but, again, they can always be moved about 

I’m hopeful.