I thought Lady Gaga nailed “God Bless America” when she opened the Super Bowl, but I thought she was directed to jump off the roof a beat or two early. There’s a green roof up there!

The decision to focus on her sequined harness rather than the roof garden was a little short-sighted.

A green roof is not exactly the same as a roof garden. There’s a fine line between the two, although we often use the words interchangeably. A green roof is planted on the roof surface. A garden roof has plantings in containers — and sometimes a picnic table and a grill.

Green roofs are designed to control storm water, insulate the building and feed pollinators — all while requiring little maintenance.

These roofs are most often planted on buildings under construction. As you can imagine, layers of water-proofing, soil and plants add a lot of weight to the structure.

That’s not to say it’s impossible to plant a green roof on an existing building. Penn State has a building called the Root Cellar; built in the 1920s. Today, it has a green roof, and every Wednesday afternoon during the summer, the Horticulture Farm Market sets up there. The new roof was planted on 4,500 square feet of space. The soil was a composite of local gravel and compost from the PSU compost project.

During a heavy storm, any impervious surface, streets, driveways, sidewalks and parking lots all can generate a torrent of water with so much power it can erode stream banks and damage storm drains. The soil and the plants on a green roof act just the way a tree does after a strong storm. They hold the water in their leaves and roots and slow the flow of water long enough to reduce a damaging runoff into storm drains.

In 2005, Penn State’s Forestry Resources Building had a white roof membrane that reflected the sun into the atrium and the office windows. The sun helped heat the building in the winter, but when summer came, the air conditioning bill rose exponentially with the building’s temperature.

Installing a meadow of sedum lessened the negative effects on the building and on the environment by intercepting and dissipating solar radiation.

The air conditioning bill went down, as well!

“Sedum meadows” sound romantic, and they guarantee a wholesome food supply for pollinators. Sedum needs full sun, can withstand drought and has a small root system. The magazine Garden Making had an article about green roofs and listed sedum, moss phlox, tickseed and thyme as good candidates for a planting. Moss phlox attracts pollinators, tickseed adds color and thyme is ornamental as well as edible. Today, many restaurants pride themselves on vegetables grown in their own gardens or purchased from area farmers.

Now, thanks to the Urban Ag movement, cooks and gardeners are looking up to their roof for handy space to grow fresh and you-can’t-get-more-local produce.

Move over, James Taylor. We’re coming Up On The Roof!

Contact Teresa Futrick at esroyllek@hotmail.com