Benefits from developing and maintaining rooftop gardens are growing for hoteliers as the green spaces provide energy savings, dining, bar and relaxation venues, as well as important vestiges for threatened wildlife in urban settings in some cases.
The rooftop spaces can also provide food for hotel restaurants, bars and gift shops.
London's 91-room Ham Yard Hotel, which is part of Firmdale Hotels, has placed two beehives near the rear of its rooftop garden. Bees are among the planet’s most important pollinators and are a vital part of human food production.
The hotel’s beehives produced their first jars of honey in 2015 and are tended to by a resident beekeeper, said Laura Sharpe, general manager of Ham Yard Hotel.
“We employ eco-friendly methods for bee management and hive maintenance. Bee-friendly plants have also been established around the hives,” Sharpe said.
Peter Banks, managing director at independent luxury hotel Rudding Park in Harrogate, Yorkshire, said his rooftop spa garden has been designed as a series of “outside rooms,” with guest relaxation in mind. He added the garden is built to last and intended to help the property's revenue streams.
“We have 50% of the roof surface covered in beds, with soil up to 800 [millimeters] deep on them. This has enabled us to plant beech hedging around the entire rooftop edge as a privacy screen and windbreak, and has allowed us to plant trees such as silver birch, along with many large grasses and other attractive plants,” he said.
Those “outside rooms” are divided by sections of garden and include a sauna, eight-person hot tub and relaxation zone in another. Lounge chairs for sun-bathing are spread throughout, and in the summer beverage service is provided.
“This enables us to turn over 50,000 pounds ($65,919) to 60,000 pounds ($79,103) per month in beverage revenue. … The garden provides us with a true level of differentiation from our competition," Banks said. "Yes, it was more expensive to build, and the entire building had to be overengineered to take the additional weight of the soil and the water that it retains.
“Was it worth it? Yes, in spades."
Sharpe said The Ham Yard Hotel’s fourth-floor garden has grand views over the London skyline and features two ancient olive trees.
“Surrounded by apple and pear fruit trees, the garden blooms all year round with seasonal flowers from poppies and lemon verbena to jasmine, creating a wild meadow," she said. "Raised beds made of railway sleepers and picket fencing form salad, herb and vegetable gardens, its produce served in the restaurant’s daily specials."
Nature Stars
Hotel gardens and green walls offer have other advantages to hoteliers, including savings on utility costs in a period of very high energy prices.
Mark Patterson is the founder of Api:Cultural, which promotes beekeeping, bees and other pollinating species and works with London businesses to help their sustainability and environmental strategies. Patterson said having rooftop gardens and other green initiatives makes sense both economically and socially.
“It has been shown that [rooftop gardens] keep energy costs down, both cool and heat buildings and provide spaces for people to pause, relax and clear their heads, which has become very important” during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.
Patterson also has brought some marketing value to one garden he tends in his capacity as a freelance ecologist. Once while on a rooftop garden — albeit one not part of a hotel — Patterson discovered a rare orchid that created a media fanfare and publicity that would otherwise have cost a business a great deal of money.
In June 2021, he discovered 15 flowering spikes of the Lesser tongue-orchid — Serapias parviflora — on the 11th-floor roof garden of a City of London headquarters of insurance company Nomura International.
Patterson said the orchid species usually lives in the Mediterranean or on the Atlantic coasts of France, Portugal and Spain, but on occasion wind will blow its seeds farther afield.
The Lesser tongue-orchid had not been seen in the U.K. for more than three decades. Not only is the United Kingdom a long way from the orchids’ origins, but also the plants need to drop onto a spot that has the right soil and other ingredients that allow it to root, grow and flower.
“When such an orchid pops out of nowhere, that provides interest and it proves that things are being done correctly,” he said.
Patterson added the rare orchid likely will flower for the next few years on the Nomura’s roof, before disappearing again from the U.K., and the discovery has hoteliers and conservationists excited at what possibilities could arrive at any green space in the U.K. capital or beyond.