How air plants can work together to create much-needed city shade

The trouble with gardening on roofs often comes down to weight. There’s the load of the plants themselves, then there’s the growing medium in which they need to stretch their roots, plus the containers required to house them and the water to hydrate them. It can take a lot of engineering to make a green roof, well, green. So, how convenient would it be to have a plant that can grow on top of buildings on nothing but thin air? Lloyd Godman and Geoff Beech are showing that tillandsias will do just that. What’s more, these epiphytic bromeliads can provide shade, help combat pollution and offer a spikey, silvery, intermittently flowering visual appeal.

tips

shade：阴暗；灯罩；影子；幽灵；vt. 使阴暗，遮蔽

roof：屋顶

stretch：伸展

medium：媒介；媒体

tillandsias：【植】铁兰属植物

epiphytic：附身植物的

epiphyte：附身植物

bromeliad：【植】凤梨科植物

spike：长钉；钉状物；尖刺；vt. 以钉子钉牢

intermittent：间隔的，断断续续的

intermit：暂时停止；中断（mit- = send，cast，送，放出）

visual：视觉的

appeal：吸引力；上诉；恳求