Chestnut Lodge Roof Garden
Although established in Europe for many years, roof gardens are a recent introduction to the green movement in the United States.
Most roof gardens are really ‘green roofs’ — planted with sedums and grasses in soil about four inches deep. The roof garden built over the shop and classroom area at the Chestnut Lodge, however, is an intensive design with soil from 8” to 12” deep and planted with not just native plants but plants from the immediate Southern Highlands Reserve woodlands.
Planned by Landscape Architect W. Gary Smith to blend into the surrounding landscape, the roof garden fits so naturally into the adjoining woodland that the footprint of the building disappears.
Jim Plyler of Natural Landscapes in Pennsylvania supplied several anchor shrubs of specimen Fringe Tree, 25 year-old Gregory Bald Azaleas and two astounding Alternate Leaf Dogwoods. The staff at Southern Highlands Reserve completed the planting with Rhododendron max, Mountain Laurel and Dervilla. They finished out the ground plane with mosses, lichens, Galax and fern.
Immediately off the roof garden, Gary Smith designed an outdoor room that features an outdoor fireplace built out of a large soapstone boulder. The well-known Native American sculptor Joel Queen of Cherokee, NC carved the legend of how the Native American peoples acquired their first fire into the face of the boulder.
The nearby motor court is paved with pervious concrete, a process that allows water to pass through at any point on the surface.
