Md. farm reaps rich harvest with its green-roof business

It is a crisp fall day on Emory Knoll Farms as John Shepley stops at a raspberry bush, picks a few berries and pops them into his mouth on his walk to the greenhouses.

He’s going to check on the recently assembled plastic covering that will protect the farm’s greenhouses in winter.

Rows and rows of small sedums, delosperma and other green roof plants sit below the covering, soaking up the sun in their newly insulated home.

The plants, millions of which are grown each year for green roofs across the country, have been the sole focus and cash crop of the Street, Md., farm since 1998, said Mr. Shepley, a former electrical engineer who now co-owns the business.

The National Aquarium in Baltimore, the Walter Reed Community Center in Washington, D.C., and Radio Shack’s World Headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, are among the farm’s more than 400 clients.

Growth of the farm’s business, which has seen as much as a 70 percent rise in sales in the last five years according to co-owner Ed Snodgrass, reflects a growing national interest in green roofs.

Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, a nonprofit working to promote green roofs in North America, reported that the area of U.S. roofs covered in greenery had jumped by 36 percent between 2007 and 2008 to 3.2 million square feet. Since the survey began in 2004, the area of green roofing has increased by 123 percent, the group reported.

Most clients install green roofs for residential dwellings, school systems, municipalities and government buildings to make them last longer, Mr. Shepley said.

Long-term sustainability is one of the goals that the Friends Community School in College Park had when constructing its new building, which opened in September 2007.

When officials decided to “go green on a budget,” said Connie Belfiore, director of admissions and outreach, “we were determined to have a green roof.”

When Mr. Snodgrass’ family began farming Emory Knoll six generations ago, the farm produced dairy products, but it eventually lost profitability, Mr. Snodgrass said.

Mr. Snodgrass then tried raising llamas, which didn’t work, and later he began growing perennials. Through connections in the horticulture world and a few horticulture conferences, Mr. Snodgrass learned about green roofs.

Mr. Snodgrass began growing a small number of plants that were used in research, and his business grew rapidly from there, he said.

“I had a lot of faith that green roofs would happen but didn’t envision it being this successful,” said Mr. Snodgrass, who heads plant research on the farm.

Mr. Shepley, who joined the farm as a partner in 2003, said they take pride not only in their service and quality of plants but also on “being a resource for the green world as a whole.”

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