Annual Green Roof Maintenance

This winter, as with every year, we went up to our very own green roof on the Burdette Keeland Jr. Center near the College of Architecture and cut back the dead vegetation so that we can plant new seeds for next year. In previous years we have used a weed whacker, but the grass and flowers were too thick, so we had to use pruning shears. Surprisingly, there were also many bluebonnets still blooming out of season, thanks to an unusually warm winter.

Here's a rough comparison of the work we did on Friday, December 12. Since it was in the middle of finals, not many people turned up, but we still cut back over half of the beds. For the most part, we left bluebonnets unscathed but removed other flowers and grasses, cutting down as low as possible with the shears; any lower would have to be done manually.

Before

After

We stopped roughly at the ladder

We returned the next week (December 17) to finish work on the remaining beds. Early next year, we will overseed the beds with bluebonnets and a native Texas mix to ensure plenty of blooms!