In early July the roof of the log house turned one of it’s more spectacular colours. Here it is, a riot of nature.

 It is fun to live in a house that changes colour! And the colour of the roof complements the log colour of the house too. In a months time this will all have dissappeared and a more yellowy flower will be the more dominant colour.

 So far the roof has fared well. We had a first year inspection by the suppliers www.bauder.co.uk and apparently we have at least 95% coverage which is very good. Sometimes the take up of the sedum is patchier than this, particularly at the edges and between rolls. We have been able to supplement rainfall over the dry spring and early summer with the odd use of the irrigation system (see earlier blog entries) but overall it is in good health, with hardly any weed growth, which as we are in the middle of a field is good going.

Although light rainfall is readily absorbed by the sedum plants, we are still getting regular top ups into the rain water recovery system. Despite two months of hardly any rain, the tank only went down to about 50% full, including using it for watering in some plants around the house as the landscaping was commenced. Then of course we had the early rain in July which filled the rain water harvesting tank up again in one session of rain.

The UK is hit by a week of snow and the insulation value of the sedum roof on the log house is demonstrated by the duration of the snow on the sedum. It is still there when the snow on neighbouring properties has melted off days before.

 Here the taller sedums poke up through the melting snow blanket. The log house really does start to look like it would in it’s homeland in North America where the wood came from.

 While we were up on the roof checking the chimney flue, we had a good look at the sedum. We had seen some wispy white looking stuff, but this turns out to be dead growth from one of the summer flowering varieties. Everything else looked fine and the areas where the rolls meet are gradually dissappearing as the sedum grows across the joins.

We have suffered from a small amount of water creeping in the chimney flue. It ran down the outside of the flue pipe, suggesting there was some sealing issue with the rain collar supplied with the flue.

 What we weren’t aware of when we fitted the flue was that the collar needs high temperature silicone to ensure a totally watertight seal. So it was up onto the sedum roof and off with the collar and out with the silicon gun.

 As we had a whole tube of sealant and did not want to go up again, we put the high temperature silicon on the obvious places and the less obvious places to make sure we did not have to get the ladders out and up on the roof again in a hurry.

 Hopefully the next time it rains we will find the job has worked!

 Here’s a nice shot of the roof of the house taken from about 50 foot up, which we can zoom in on and see how the sedum is doing. It’s been up for about 6 months now and with the poor summer we have had with frequent rain we have rarely had to use the irrigation system to help it settle in.

 Here is our last close up for now. We will try to get up with a ladder to keep you updated later in the summer.

 From our close up collection of the sedum roof before the scaffold came down, more Yellow ones

 A whole gang of the cheery chaps here!

 Yet another variety on the roof.

 Here is another one, just starting to flower.