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Stewardship, a partnership between a green roofer and its caretakers intended to keep it viable long into the future, is critical if we don’t want ecological design to fail.

We hear a lot about green roof maintenance.

The word gets tossed around in landscape architecture and ecological design, the clear implication that as long as you attend to a system in some way, it will do just fine.

However, the assumption underlying the concept of maintenance – that you can take the same cookie-cutter approach on a twice-yearly basis to each green roof – fails to consider one important truth:

No two green roofs are alike.

If you haul the same bucket of supplies up every time, without testing and inspecting plants and components, then eventually you will miss problems. First little ones, and then big.

Maintenance, in other words, is not enough.

Taking care of your green roof, rain garden or other green system is critical. Unfortunately, many people worry it will cost too much and don’t do it. You can avoid that mistake.

Green roofs and other forms of green infrastructure have proven to possess more benefits to homeowners and commercial managers than bluing does to an old lady’s social life.

Sorry. We just really wanted to make a bluing reference. Is that still a thing? It’s gotta be a thing, right? Anyway, we’re done now. Back to the greening.

In addition to helping the environment in a multitude of ways, green roofs improve property values, soothe sore eyes and keep our cities cooler.

And they are themselves cool. Like, real neat indeed.

But only if they’re well-kept. Routine, cost-effective stewardship is the best way to maintain the worth of your initial green infrastructure investment and keep delivering those benefits, year after year. But how does it work? What steps should your plan include? And how can you avoid spending a branch and a limb in the process?

Luckily, bluing references aren’t all we’ve got. Read on for a step-by-step plan to steward your green roof cost-effectively today.

While the words “maintenance” and “stewardship” are often confused, they are in fact two distinct concepts that we need to sort out immediately, for the sake of the environment and our cities.

The word maintenance has been unjustly deified as something toward which we should strive in matters of landscaping and green roofing.

We take issue with that.

And not in a minor way, like we take issue with anchovies on pizza or calling all organic food “farm to table.”

No, we take real issue with it. Because the truth is, when we confuse these two words, we dilute the benefits of green infrastructure and fail to safeguard them like we ought.

Boo to that.

Let’s discuss why we need true stewardship so much, and how to get there.

Want to keep those energy costs low and protect that budget? Keeping your green roof sound is the place to start.

Keeping your green roof nice should provide its own motivation, but let’s face it: Life is busy.

There are meetings to attend and spouses to appease and dogs to feed. (Also, we should feed our children occasionally.)

We can’t always get to everything on the to do list, and the fact of the matter is, green roofs often take the hit when it comes to schedule rearrangements.

Sometimes for months. Or years.

The problem with that is, you could be wasting a huge amount of money on energy costs and setting yourself up for big problems later.

So just how do green roofs and stewardship work together, and how does regular oversight reduce energy costs? Let’s take a look.