Iris Rothman’s allergies prevent her from keeping pets, but they don’t stop her from enjoying animal companionship. Iris and her husband Shannon Ferguson live on a small city property located only blocks from the heart of downtown Washington, D.C.,

better known for its political animals than its wildlife ones. Yet wild creatures of all shapes and sizes dot Iris’s backyard sanctuary which, in true city fashion, rests on top of her garage.
“I really love my little sanctuary, how peaceful it is,” says Iris, a member of The HSUS’s Urban Wildlife Sanctuary Program.
Creating a rooftop garden like Iris’s is one way city dwellers can promote a healthy and diverse environment. After all, these nature reclamation projects try to rescue what cities all too easily steal away. But creating an urban wildlife sanctuary, even a small one like Iris’s, has an added benefit: It attracts and shelters wildlife such as squirrels, various species of birds and even migrating birds. The daily entertainment provided by these animals can be addictive. As Iris would soon find out.
Iris’s interest in urban wildlife began more than two decades ago when her husband Shannon was on a long business trip. “I was lonely, and someone had given me bird feeders—the kind you stick on your window. So I stuck up those feeders and birds came. I was thrilled!” she recalls.
“And then a squirrel showed up, and she would knock down every one of those little feeders. I’d run out with my broom and chase her off. After awhile it occurred to me that the squirrel was actually much more interesting than the birds were. The birds had it on looks, but certainly not on brains,” says Iris, recalling how she “gave in” and began providing seed for the squirrels, too—who promptly stopped raiding the bird feeders.
“That experience really made me appreciate the companionship you can get from a wild animal,” reflect Iris, a freelance writer and editor.
The 58-year-old Iris and her 59-year-old researcher husband moved to their current home in 1991. Two things convinced Iris to buy the house. “There were seven or eight trees in the backyard, which is very unusual for the inner city,” Iris explains. “And I saw all these squirrels climbing up the drainpipe and going into a hole in the porch roof. I took it as a good omen—that this would be the place to move my urban wildlife sanctuary.”
The original backyard was 40 feet by 30 feet, but Iris wanted more gardening space. So she and Shannon rebuilt their crumbling garage, whose roof is level with the ground in their backyard. At the time, the garage’s roof was gone, leaving a huge hole in the yard. The roofing company Soprema, looking for a model rooftop garden to show potential customers, agreed to construct Iris’s at no cost. The company waterproofed the roof, added drainage and then loaded about 12 inches of soil on it. “It’s like a giant planter box,” Iris says.
“I was frankly far more interested in having the roof garden than having a place to park my car,” she says of the sunny 20-foot-by-20-foot extension of her shady backyard.
While catching on slowly in this country, “green roofs” have long been popular in Europe, where many densely populated municipalities require them to mitigate storm water runoff and replace the green “footprints” taken up by buildings. Iris and Shannon’s roof garden is planted with mountain laurel, miniature conifers, several shrub species, ferns, and plenty of flowers, including hollyhocks, verbascum, Asiatic lilies, daffodils, foxglove, cape fuchsia, morning glories, and pansies.
The lightweight artificial soil on the roof has compacted down to about eight inches now. “Last summer, I probably only watered three or four times out on the roof,” says Iris. “It’s been so low maintenance. Gardens should be fun and relaxing. You shouldn’t agonize over them! And I really love having my garden be so alive.”
The most impressive feature of her garden may be the little stream that trickles through her vegetation. “I really wanted a waterfall in my yard,” says Iris, “so we built this little two-inch deep stream, six inches across, with a small pond for the water to fall into. My husband calls it The Rio Iris.”
Iris sees squirrels and many species of birds drinking and bathing in the stream every day. Even migrating birds stop by for a dip. “I come here in the morning with my newspaper and coffee, as far into the winter as I can stand it, and watch the squirrels run around and listen to the birds sing. It’s a wonderful way to start the day.”

by Margaret Baird