Diana Arsham has maintained a rooftop garden in San Francisco for over 25 years. She started by planting vegetables in wooden wine crates on her tar and gravel roof. After getting a new roof, she was able to build stairs and develop the full garden. It now covers most of her roof. Arsham advocates for urban gardening and sustainability. She uses succulents that require little water and has embraced permaculture practices. Her rooftop garden serves as an inspiration for other urban gardeners.

1. Gardening in the Sky
Every home may not have a yard,
but every house has a roof
W
HEN SHE was just a little city At first she walked carefully on the
girl visiting the farm her tar and gravel roof and established a
mother’s family homesteaded beachhead with a lawn chair looking out
in southern Illinois, Diana Arsham walked at the bay. Eager to grow her own food,
into a pink peony bush, and it sparked a she planted pole beans under trellises and
love of gardening that has lasted all her other vegetables in wooden wine crates.
life. “They call it a bird’s-eye view for a
“I can still smell it,” she says. “I bonded reason,” she laughs. “They loved it. I gave
with that plant.” them a buffet.”
At college, her dorm room was filled So she decided to stick to plants and
with plants. After she graduated and flowers and kept climbing up with more
married, many of those plants came on wine crates.
the three-week trip that brought her and
“L
her husband to San Francisco in 1972. UCKILY, we needed a new roof,”
Like coals to Newcastle, she even brought she says. That provided the
an avocado tree, which had to be cleared opening to build a stairway and
by the agricultural authorities when they develop the full potential of her rooftop
entered the state. garden. A structural engineer reported
“Well, I started it, and I grew attached that the perimeter walls could bear the
to it,” she says. “I still have a peanut cactus weight of a garden. The center was shored
I brought. It must be 60 years old by now.” up with redwood rafters.
Urban gardening required extra effort. The wine boxes she’d been using were
At their first apartment on Green Street, too shallow. An ad in the Sebastopol
she climbed out the window to water the newspaper offered 55-gallon plastic barrels
plants she grew on top of the garage. And that once contained apple juice, which
then when they moved up the hill to their she cut into thirds and drilled with drain
current home, at first she climbed up a holes.
ladder onto the flat roof. “They’re ideal,” she says. “They’re
“Look at the view,” she says, spreading lightweight, and plants don’t really need
her arms out over the blue waters of the
bay, with Angel Island in the distance.
more than a couple of feet of soil.”
By the mid-80s, Arsham had become
“ You look out over the rooftops of San Francisco and
“Look at the sunshine. I thought, ‘How a true Californian, making annual you see parking lots. I see potential gardens.”
can we not have a garden?’ So I’ve been up pilgrimages to the Tassajara Zen Center,
here nearly every day for 25 years.” TO PAGE 14 4 DIANA ARSHAM, working in her rooftop garden

2. 4 FROM PAGE 13
where she volunteered in the gardens
offers two simple pieces of advice:
Watch your roots. And pay attention to Growing More, Watering Less
and the kitchen. She became a docent maintenance.
D
at the Strybing Arboretum, now the She has the wooden deck restained IANA Arsham’s
San Francisco Botanical Garden. every three years, and the deck in turn has rooftop garden
She developed a missionary’s zeal for protected the roof underneath from the has changed
sustainability and urban gardening. ravages of wind and sun. considerably in the 25
“You look out over the rooftops in San As in any garden on the ground, years since she grew
Francisco, like most cities, and you see there have been challenges from pests. her first crop of pole
parking lots,” she says. “I see potential In addition to birds, there are sometimes beans and saw them
gardens.” slugs and roof rats and even the occasional eaten by the birds.
raccoon. Vegetables take
S
O SHE volunteered with San “I haven’t had a coyote yet, but I far more vigilance
Francisco Beautiful and chaired wouldn’t be surprised,” she says. Her — and water —
a task force that developed and attitude is live and let live — except for than other plants
published a booklet to encourage more the slugs. she has embraced
rooftop gardens. It has been a The neighbors have as her ecological
bestseller — at $7 a complimented her on consciousness has
pop — brightening their outlook, grown and she
and has helped many and her efforts have inspired has become ever
other city dwellers at least two more gardens more committed to
realize they can share atop nearby homes. permaculture —
the joy of gardening, “People come up and say, sustainable permanent
even if they don’t have ‘Well I could do this,’ ” she agriculture that
yards. The booklet is says. Succulents add visual interest, but take little requires little water.
still available through water, says local gardener Diana Arsham. “I’ve been blessed
H
www.sfbeautiful.org. ER HUSBAND has by happening onto
The city’s planning been supportive, succulents,” she says. “They take very little water, and they have such
code doesn’t make it but he steadfastly interesting shapes. They add visual interest even without showy flowers.”
simple to get a permit refuses to help with the She waters only once a week, except in the rainy season, when she doesn’t
to create a rooftop heavy lifting. water at all. And she waters by hand, rather than with the automated
garden, so most people “If I want it, I have to drip system many gardeners prefer, maintaining that it results in a closer
don’t ask. The political carry it,” Arsham says. connection with her plants and uses less water.
leadership to change Practical guidance on how He does take on the A visit to her rooftop garden on a sunny afternoon in early March reveals
city policy has not yet to create a rooftop garden weekly watering duties a riot of succulents in variegated colors, shapes and sizes — and not a few
emerged. is offered in a booklet when she’s out of town, showy flowers, including blazing orange blooms on ice plants and yellow
“That remains to be written by volunteers at and it’s clear that both spikes on chocolate colored aeoniums.
San Francisco Beautiful.
done,” Arsham says. “As Visit www.sfbeautiful.org.
Arsham and her husband “We pretty much bloom in the winter,” she says. “Summer blooms take
the green movement derive great pleasure from too much water.”
continues, I can see the climbing up the stairs to Many of her plants are in fact summer bloomers from the southern
rules being reworked to encourage more their garden in the sky. hemisphere — especially Australia, Chile and South Africa. They do well in
roof gardens.” “It’s like a place in the country with no San Francisco’s temperate climate. Native California plants also naturally do
After more than two decades of driving,” he says. “When we come up here well in the city’s wet winters and dry summers.
gardening on top of her house, Arsham it’s like we’re not in the city anymore.”
THE NEW FILLMORE ■ APRIL 2008