The roof garden of the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. A roof
garden is any garden on the roof of a building. Besides the
decorative benefit, roof plantings may provide food, temperature
control, hydrological benefits, architectural enhancement,
habitats or corridors for wildlife, and recreational
opportunities. Humans have grown plants atop structures since
antiquity. The ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia (4th millennium
BC–600 BC) had plantings of trees and shrubs on aboveground
terraces. An example in Roman times was the Villa of the
Mysteries in Pompeii, which had an elevated terrace where plants
were grown. A roof garden has also been discovered around an
audience hall in Roman-Byzantine Caesarea. The medieval Egyptian
city of Fustat had a number of high-rise buildings that Nasir
Khusraw in the early 11th century described as rising up to 14
stories, with roof gardens on the top story complete with ox-
drawn water wheels for irrigating them. The roof terrace of the
Casa Grande hotel in Santiago de Cuba. R