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Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?

A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.

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Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

Ask Mr. Smarty Plants is a free service provided by the staff and volunteers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

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Please forgive us, but Mr. Smarty Plants has been overwhelmed by a flood of mail and must take a break for awhile to catch up. We hope to be accepting new questions again soon. Thank you!

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Friday - March 10, 2006

From: Bowie, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Wildflower Center
Title: Information on green roof demonstration site at Wildflower Center
Answered by: Nan Hampton and Mark Simmons

QUESTION:

I visited your green roof demonstration site and am interested in putting a green roof on a structure. There seemed to be at least two layers of growing medium in the planters; one layer looked like rounded pumice or rounded brick fragments and I believe it was below the drip irrigation lines and the other looked like a growing medium. Could you explain what each layer does and where I could get the stuff in bulk?

ANSWER:

Our expert, Mark Simmons, thinks the layers you are referring to are merely the gravitational settlement of the media (synthetic soil) following rain events. The composition of each of these media is proprietary; however, contacting the suppler Siplast may help. We are in the process of creating more infomation about this experiment as it gets set-up over the the next month or so. If you haven't seen it already, please visit our Green Roof Gardening page.
 

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