As she describes it, Kimberly Hess is just a country girl frtom a dead-end road. She likes to harvest wildflowers from the prairie and from ditches to make fresh and dried flower arrangements, which she sells out of her Prairie Petals flower shop in downtown Fargo.
She’s a conservationist, too. Along with her husband, George, she has participated in the Reinvest in Minnesota critical habitat development program since 1991 by cultivating indigenous wildflowers and prairie grasses on 170 acres of farmland along the Red River north of Halstad, Minn.
When she’s downtown, she’s out of her element.
“I thought, ‘To have a place close by my flower shop where I could plant flowers would be invaluable,” she said.
And so she took to the rooftops. She looked at the building where her business is located on NP Avenue near Broadway, but it wouldn’t do. “And so I started looking around,” she said, “and I looked around some more until I had an ‘A-ha! Moment.’ It’s right over there!”
The prairie wasn’t too far away from Prairie Petals. In fact, it’s a very short walk from her business at 623 NP Avenue to 102 Broadway, the former Straus Clothing building, now home to the Kilbourne Group. The company, led by former Microsoft senior vice president Doug Burgum, is devoted to preserving and redeveloping downtown Fargo. The Group purchased the 1964-era Straus building in 2007, and has since renovated the property to include a rooftop covered in a rubber membrane, insulation, and four inches of soil planted with indigenous prairie grasses.
In her A-ha! Moment, Hess knew that the location is perfect for planting a garden. “They already have a rooftop prairie up there,” Hess said, “and they already have the water. And they’re interested in this sort of venture. And, yes, it’s close to my flower shop.”
Having a rooftop garden might be a unique idea in Fargo, but in urban areas across the country, the concept is seen as a way to make downtown areas more livable. For example, in Chicago, the city’s Department of Environment encourages building owners to install green areas on rooftops because plants reflect heat, provide shade, and help to cool surrounding air. Gardens also help to cut cooling costs inside a building by providing insulation, but more than that, the gardens absorb rain, reduce runoff, and filter pollutants. Ultimately, having a garden “up top” can protect a roof from damage and extend its useful life, and if you’re not only using the garden to grow food, the space can be used for leisure and to attract birds and butterflies.
For Hess, having a rooftop garden is more about growing her inventory locally to reduce her business’ impact on the environment. “It’s pretty exciting to have a garden on top of the roof,” she said, “and to be up there in the city, looking around and gardening, and to bring forth the idea that we can grow our food closer to where we are going to use it. I get to walk off that roof—walk—and then walk to my flower shop and walk to my customers.” It’s about using human energy instead of fossil fuels to deliver the goods.
Early last year, Hess approached Kilbourne Group about planting a garden on top of their property, but it took another year to get started, she said, because she first had to consult with an engineer about where she could put more weight on the roof and about what the restrictions would be. “I’m working within limitations,” she said, “but the building was remodeled with a plan in mind that it would hold a garden on the roof.”
When she began installing the garden earlier this year, Hess said she made a point of not using the elevator whenever possible. She hauled containers, some soil, and lumber for box gardens up the stairs. “We hauled many, many, many, many, many pounds up those stairs,” she said, “and we’re still using the stairs. It’s physically strenuous, but we walk to the roof. We’re not riding the elevator up and down.
“I’m at a time in my life when I’m working harder than I ever have before, both mentally and physically,” she said, “and I have worked pretty hard in the past in both of those departments, but the next order that the Kilbourne Group gives me for flowers will be picked from that roof. Their own roof. That is really thrilling to me.”
The top of 102 Broadway is now home to garden boxes and containers filled with flowers, herbs, vegetables, and grasses, all of which are inventory for Prairie Petals. Hess has several customers downtown, she said, and 90 percent of the vegetables and herbs will be sold to downtown restaurants, including Mezzaluna, Green Market Kitchen, the HoDo Restaurant, Monty’s, and Taste of Italy. In keeping with her green ideals, “we will be delivering those vegetables and herbs to them on foot or on bike,” she said.
Earlier this spring, when the plants were really young, birds snipped them out of their beds, she said, but birds are the height of her worries. “I was up there, and I’d been working at it for a little while,” Hess said, “and I realized that I’m not going to have any rabbits, and no deer will walk through my tulip bed and eat them.” She has also come to realize that the rooftop garden is going to warm up earlier in the spring, she said, in part because the garden is heated by the building underneath. “And because the prairie that’s up there is perennial,” she said, “that means that every perennial I put up there will have a chance to survive.”
Hess has hired a gardener to take care of the watering and the weeding, and in the future, she plans to install an automatic watering system and will use mulch in the beds. “They aren’t mulched now, and so the water is evaporating off the top,” she said. “Staying ahead of the watering is the hardest part, especially in this heat, but there are many things that we can do to impact how much water we will need.” In addition to mulch, Hess said she will be sewing some covers for the beds that will prevent water from evaporating, but that will allow the plants to grow through.
And soon, the rooftop will be home to some of Hess’s own prairie land from near Halstad. “I get to dig up parts of that prairie and put it up on the roof,” she said, “and so there will be that prairie there with its wildflowers, which I will pick from.
“More than anything,” she said, “it’s a symbol of what I am, and of what they [the Kilbourne Group] are.”
The garden is a work in progress, “and I’m sure that I will change it and tweak it and add to it,” Hess said. “My palette is the entire roof of the building. The Kilbourne Group is supporting me in this in that they are allowing me to give it a whirl to see what works, and to change what doesn’t work.”
When people hear about Hess’s garden, they get excited, she said, and some people are surprised, “but for a lot of people, there is a growing movement toward living green,” she said, “and living more ecologically minded, and so a number of people are like, ‘Oh, we actually have one of those in our area? I want to see that!’”
“I love it!” Hess said of her experience gardening on the roof. “I have been living at the end of a dead end road for 17 years and I like the country life, and I never realized what it would be like to be downtown because I’m not a downtown person, but when I find myself on top of that roof looking around, I feel invigorated to see people walking down the street. It’s electrifying. It’s a little bit like I’m on top of the world up there right now. Just a little bit.”
Is it worth it? “I haven’t reaped a dollar from it yet,” she said, “but it’s in keeping with my philosophy, with my thinking, and with my plan to remain downtown.”
Does she have any advice for someone else who might want to start a rooftop garden? “I would ask, ‘What is the reason for gardening on a roof?’ because there are a lot of reasons for gardening on a roof. Are you gardening for beauty, or are you gardening to feed people? When you define what the reason is, it sends you down a road.”
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