After our last post about green roofs at the University of Ottawa, I got a lot of questions about why we can't have green roofs everywhere on campus. If the answer was simple, I wouldn't have to write a entire blog post about it... but since I am writing a post... you can probably take the hint that this is a bit more complicated then a yes/no kind of thing. As a quick reminder, the University has a design imperative in place that implies green roofs will be installed in any case where the building can take the weight without a new support system, that the building is still going to be around in 20 years, or if the roof wouldn't serve better as a place for solar panels. Photo credit - kingcounty.gov HOW MUCH CO2 COULD WE SEQUESTER? First thing people were asking me about was sequester CO2. If roofs can take carbon out of the air, why not do more of this? Of course all plants sequester CO2 but a green roof can't do as much as a tree and certainly not as much as a peat bo...

The community gardens are back... and just in time cause this snow is killing me. Sunday the community garden group got together for a garden work bee. Thanks to a compost delivery last Friday, there was plenty of work to do. A good part of the day was spent cleaning out old plots, trenching the existing plots, adding some compost, and finally.... gratuitous hi-fives. This marks the 8th consecutive year of community gardening on campus at the University of Ottawa with approximately 50 plots available to staff, students, and community members. Not bad considering the garden originally started out as a small group of 10 students sharing 4 plots. This year, like that last few years, the resources for the garden were provided by Physical Resources Service and the community organizing was provided by OPIRG . And like last year, the plots are open on a first come first serve basis and are free to all those who participate. I am really happy to see the gardens up and running thi...