Green roof in shade

[SushiShopSearch]

We've just bought a bin hide and it lets us plant a green roof on top of it however it's in the shade. Will anything survive or are we wasting our time? TIA

Go for it, ours is mostly chives for some reason, but partial shade. But a couple of packs of wild flower seeds and what grows grows, I don't think we've touched ours for at least seven years.

It's in the sun now but mostly shade between the houses.

that looks lovely but ours is in the shade

What's the worst that can happen?

London pride grows in the shade in my paving at the back of the house. Worth a try but not fashionable so you might have to grow from seed.

All I see when I google London pride are flipping rainbow flags or a bottle of beer

Saxifraga x urbium Is London pride

francoa also works in shade. You wouldn’t have a full height Francoa but it’s quite adaptable so I think on less soil you would just have smaller leaves.

Really your looking for evergreen or semi evergreen ground cover plants that can survive on shallow substrate.

That is francoa on a shallow substrate. It’s looks like a neat bed of evergreen salad leaves but you get these cool flowers.

Still wracking my brains for you OP.

Its a project I am going to do next summer too.

Waldenstenia is a woodland plant so will work in shade but you will need more humus than the typical green roof soil (usually the soils are filled with at least half inorganic material to reduce the weight of the roof when wet and provide good drainage for typical sedum type roofs).

And certain types of mat forming or dwarf campanulas would work.

perhaps potentilla nepalensis too if light shade.

To get around the soil issue you could do bands of different soils. More well drained for the London Pride, medium for the francoa and less for the waldenstenia. Probably quite a good way to limit competition and keep lots of different plants in a small space. Probably best to put the most drained higher and less drained lower on the tilt.

Wild garlic grows in shade, but a green roof might be too dry. The young leaves make a great pesto. Maybe primroses? Alchamilla Mollis? Foxgloves? Anemones?

on our wood store green roof, saxifrage and London pride do well, but also all sorts of self sown plants have colonised it, they grown in miniature. So there’s little rowen trees, ragged Robin, alchamilla and other self seeded plants.
it’s also covered in a rambling rose atm.

that sounds beautiful

Thank you, it’s really a bit rough and ready, but the insects like it 😊

Sounds amazing @Beebumble2