first snow dec 14!

visit from longwood gardens students

http://www.longwoodgardens.org/

fall at the greenhouse

oh deer!

Can you find all five I sighted near the greenhouse?  I like to think of this study site as an urban analog since it is beside a large parking lot, but there is still this patch of forest in the west. I guess, according to the Ellis lab, I would be in an anthrome.

interception

During a recent storm that was very very small, the moisture content on our unplanted platforms increased, but there was no moisture content increase on the planted platforms.  This picture shows how Sedum album can hold water on its leaves (granted a small amount); this intermediate capture is known as interception both in science and football.

Spodoptera before and after feasting on Sedum album

the general army worm has emerged!

This is what happened to the worm I found in my experiment and kept in a plastic container for a few weeks. I added the flowers in case he is hungry, but I am not sure these are the right kind. Follow this link to see the worm prior to metamorphosis.

more flowers and insects

Sedum album in flower below and I think a "buckeye" butterfly (?) on this kamschaticum

flowers

so I have decided to let the plants flower since they seem to have added on a lot of biomass over the summer. the bees are pleased with this. there are bee boxes behind the greenhouse and i got to see a bee-keeping class open them up last week. this week we got a sample. fresh honey definitely beats the store-bought stuff.

proof that this is not easy

Here are some funny pics of my adventures trying to get aerial photos.  The first picture is a view of the camera stand  (see previous post) taken by the camera after it fell off of the stand.  Then there are the numerous photos taken of my arm when the timer went off before I could raise the camera up on the stand.  I have obviously still not perfected the art of aerial photography,  (my field of view is slightly too small), but I thought it would be useful to document the struggle. I went ahead and did some digital analysis of the photos I have so far.  On the sexangulare platform, there is approx 35% coverage, 40% coverage on the kamschaticum platform, and 50% on the album (shown here); these estimates are all probably slightly over due to my inability to photo the platform edge. Special thanks to Colleen Butler at Tufts who helped me figure out how to use imageJ to do this analysis.

damsel

aerial photo set-up

So, we have been thinking for a long time about how to take aerial photos of the plants in order to chart their growth. Thankfully, Clark, who has been a super great help on the project came up with a really good design that we tested today. The camera holder also doubles as a guillotine (just kidding) Photos will be coming soon, but in the meantime, thank you Clark! We will miss seeing you more often once the school year starts.

intruders!

On further inspection of a Sedum album plant that was looking straggly, I discovered what I believe to be a yellow-striped army worm and will hereafter refer to (him) as General Sedgwick Albert III. I scooped him up and hope to rear him to moth-hood. On another platform I found this feather... hopefully from a nice well-fed worm-eating species (sorry General).

data!

Here's an example of the data we are collecting from the platforms.  The x-axis shows that this is recent data from July.  There are mulitple y axes. First, on the left you can see preliminary data on media moisute content from 4 probes.  The spikes are from irrigation, except from on July 25th when it rained (see rain gauge volume axis that is actually an indicator of platform runoff).  We are also collecting temperature data from the media; it was nearly 100F on some days (hence the need to irrigate)

Rain gauge set-up for collecting platform runoff

Hopefully this gauge will record some runoff for us this weekend!

praying mantis on Sedum kamschaticum

weather station

Today we also started collecting environmental data about the site. We've got a rain gauge,a light sensor, and an anemometer for measuring wind speed. This data will help us infer rates of evapotranspiration from the platforms.

Instruments!

At this stage of the study, we are trying to get all the instruments ready to measure the water cycle on our platforms while the plants get establsihed.  Here is a picture of the soil moisture sensor we will use.  Each sensor will be calibrated to the specific conditions in the greenroof media.

plant close-up

This is Sedum album. Here we are trying to get a good estimate of initial plant size (roots, shoots, etc). Note how fibrous the roots are!

nearly complete

compared to last month  there is a big difference.

we still need to add some plant biomass, the gutters, and some monitoring equipment

the plants

Nothing beats a trip to Emory Knoll farms on a sunny day to pick up greenroof plants.  Not only can you see how the plants are grown (and watered using solar energy- see the pic below), but you can also observe how they have been performing on several demonstration roofs (see pic above).  The farm's owner/operator, Ed Snodgrass was generous enough to give me a small tour of the grounds and share some of the wisdom about greenroof plants he has gained through years of experience. Ed and Lucy Snodgrass are the authors of the book, Greenroof Plants.

adding the media

Thanks team of volunteers from UMBC, UMCP and Stevenson University!

Media

We got our media from Stancills . You may know them as Skygarden. I was lucky to meet the father/daughter duo behind this family owned and operated business.  They were interested in the details of my study and asked some good questions. 

cutting the filter fabric, protection fabric, and drainage layer

I had some "help" with this.

careful with the corners and note the patch

The greenroof layers

Once the platforms (above right) were built, we were ready for the next step.  We got our greenroof supplies from Conservation Technology in Remington. They were very instructive and supportive.  The first layer added, shown here, was the water-proofing membrane.

the platform construction in action

*note the waterproofing membrane has already been added in some of these pictures (see above re: the membrane)

Chesapeake Center for Youth Development

We were really lucky to have support from students in the carpentry class at the Chesapeake Center for Youth Development.  The mission of this organization is to make a positive difference in the lives of youth who are vulnerable to becoming involved in the juvenile justice system. They were a great help.  Here they are helping us add structures to the concrete walls that will support the platforms in the future.

how to make 18 experimental greenroof platforms

First, a huge amount of credit is due to Dr. Bradley Rowe and his research program at Michigan State University. We modeled our design off of theirs, specifically following the VanWoert et al. (2005) article in volume 34 of the Journal of Environmental Quality.

Here is a picture of the site shortly after we began...

greenwall in san fransisco

Saw this at the ASCE LID conference
I am always impressed by the quality research presented at these conferences.
I think next year it will be in Philadelphia...