<bold>Living roofs</bold>, or green roofs, provide ecosystem function to rooftops. Plant selection for living roofs in North America has been dominated by members of the <italic>Sedum</italic> genus and other rocky ecosystem plants. This paper investigates the <bold>Walnut Limestone barrens and glades</bold> communities as an appropriate ecosystem from which to choose plant species for use on living roofs in <bold>north central Texas</bold>. This study presents plant performance data from six months of monitoring five test module treatments and two field sites. Performance data suggests the Walnut barrens and glades are viable ecosystems to use as a template for plant selection. First growing season results indicate <bold>commercial growth medium substrate provides stability</bold> and predictability, while a <bold>native soil substrate provides resilience</bold> and an active <bold>seedbank</bold> for annual germination. Four species were identified as viable living roof candidates for north central Texas: <italic>Buchloe dactyloides, Muhlenbergia reverchonii, Opuntia phaeacantha</italic> var. <italic>major</italic>, and <italic>Yucca pallida</italic>.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TCU/oai:etd.tcu.edu:etd-04032009-072155 |
| Date | 03 April 2009 |
| Creators | Kinder, Jonathan William |
| Contributors | Tony L Burgess |
| Publisher | Texas Christian University |
| Source Sets | Texas Christian University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.tcu.edu/etdfiles/available/etd-04032009-072155/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to TCU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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