Meet the man on a mission, Dusty Gedge, who will be bringing a slice of the Amazon to the cold, misty skies of Britain this Spring.
Nothing could have prepared one of the UK’s leading rooftop gardeners, Dusty Gedge, for the enormity of the task in Rooftop Rainforest – two one-hour programmes on Sky 1 HD this month. He was given the task of erecting a tropical rainforest on top of a London building. It’s a project to raise the profile of the Sky Rainforest Rescue campaign (see below, right). We met Dusty to see how it went…
Your mission is quite a ‘tall order’ [Laughs] Putting up a tropical rainforest on a roof in London?It’s a bit nuts really, isn’t it?
Did you think you could do it?
I wasn’t sure. But I’m an avid conservationist, so I wanted to give it all I could.
How did you get into ‘green roofing’?
I found a rare bird on some land– the black redstart. Its habitat was going to be built on, so I thought, ‘Why not put it on the roof?’
So, it all developed from there?
Yes , I’ve since published books, changed policies and I speak globally on the subject.
What sort of challenges are you facing?
Lots! Finding a suitable roof... How do you keep it all warm? How do you keep it wet?
Where is the vegetation coming from?
Sourcing vegetation that is native to rainforests is a big ask in the UK, so we had to go to specialist nurseries in Holland.
Are you excited about the project?
Extremely! Can it be done? Let’s just see...
