Florida Green Lodge

I was disappointed when I picked up a flier on the requirements to be a Florida Green Lodge and noticed that there were NO site or landscape considerations. While it is very admirable that hotels are beginning to conserve water by their laundry practices and low flow plumbing fixtures, shouldn’t there be a requirement to conserve water in the landscape?

There are admirable energy efficiency requirements but these could be supplemented with additional requirements for low energy outdoor light fixtures and planting appropriate trees to shade buildings and air conditioning units.

Additional best management practices should include plant selections and planting methods to reduce fertilizer and chemical runoff, full cut off outdoor lights to protect the night sky, sound stormwater retention practices and areas for wild life habitat.

Plant Decline Follow up

We pulled out a portion of the perennial peanut that died back. The dead plant is on the bottom of the picture and the roots are on the top. There were still some live roots. It did seem a bit fishy that the cold snap would hurt the perennial peanut since it grows far north of here and this was confirmed by Patti Veale at Sunset Specialty Ground Covers. There were still some viable roots (white stringy things) On inspection a few weeks later, there had been some recovery on the remaining perennial peanut which points to drying out and not freezing as the cause of decline.

Lesson learned (again) - a moisture sensor/automatic way to irrigate is important to green roofs in South Florida. Just like the Key West Brown Roof, if you don't stay on top of the water, the plants don't make it. Fortunately, we discovered it before we totally lost the perennial peanut.

Many green roof installations may be on buildings where there is not easy access or interested maintenance personnel. It is so important that there be sensible but automatic watering as well as regularly scheduled maintenance checks. One of our next steps will be to research easy to use, reasonably priced moisture sensors so that we can report on how to incorporate them into they system.