Peter Dowdall: Green roofs can boost biodiversity and help flood alleviation

'Vertical gardens reduce  the volume of water and the speed at which the rainwater enters the drainage system, decreasing the risk of flash flooding' 

For green walls and rooftop gardens to be effective and for them to thrive, it is important to select the right plants that will do well in sometimes harsh conditions and which can tolerate moisture fluctuations. File pictures

I was presenting a talk recently in the corporate world and the title of my presentation was “Garden Design for Biodiversity: Creating Sustainable and Wildlife-Friendly Gardens” which, when you think about it, is really a convoluted way of saying “letting nature do her thing”.

Listening to the feedback from my talk, one of the points that I made that seemed to resonate strongly was that we need to stop seeing nature as separate from us.