RISC Rooftop Garden Open Day

The RISC Roof Garden is a small edible roof forest garden developed to demonstrate sustainability and our dependence on plants. All plants in the garden have an economic use for food, clothing, medicine etc, and come from all over the world.

Can fruit and nut trees grow in soil 30cm deep?



How does a roof structure take the weight of an actual forest?



Find out the answers to these questions and more at our award-winning sustainable garden.



For more than 20 years, RISC has used the roof space to grow global, using a carefully selected combination of perennial herbaceous plants, shrubs, trees and climbers. Every plant is either edible, medicinal, or practical in some way, which supports food security and increases biodiversity in the heart of Reading.



It is designed and used as an educational tool for sustainable living using ‘permaculture’ practises. Permaculture focuses on designing sustainable human practises in farming and settlement, as well as natural resource management and land use.