Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Promotes Green Roofs

Thanks to the support of long-time Austin TX philanthropist Gary Bradley, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center has achieved an expansion of its borders and services to the public and the research community. His donation and sale of lands within the Circle C Ranch community have proven to be a vital resource for the center. Gary Bradley, known for the concern he devoted to environmentally sensitive land in his Rob Roy development in the 1970s, continues to play a major role in the Wildflower Center’s success.

The center’s mission, to promote the care and conservation of native plants and to offer information about their uses in medicine and technology, is highlighted in projects such as the one to help cool hot environments by installing green roofs. Recent research by the center’s Ecosystem Design Group focuses on expanding the knowledge of how green roofs can work outside the temperate regions in which they have mostly taken root. 

In parts of the world that experience extreme climatic events such as soaring temperatures and associated flash flooding, green roof technology can provide cool oases for large metropolitan populations. They can also act as reducers of the urban heat-island effect, in which heat trapped in city centers spurs costly and often dangerous temperature rises in comparison with surrounding rural areas. 

A well-planned green roof system can save energy costs and increase the useful lifetime of existing roof membranes.

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Preserves the Nation’s Beauty

 


Gary Bradley of Austin, TX, has spent decades at the forefront of the area’s real estate development industry. He has also contributed to a number of charitable causes, including the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas at Austin. He has served as a major donor to the center, and his development at Circle C Ranch intersects with its eastern portion. Gary Bradley’s contributions to the center exemplify his commitment to his Austin, TX, community.

Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, was the force behind a prominent national campaign designed to beautify America. Her idea was a simple one: that the creation of beauty in unattractive urban landscapes in particular would help people achieve better emotional health and contribute to everyone’s well-being.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center honor continues that tradition. Working with the goal of preserving and promoting beautiful, healthy landscapes, the center serves to educate people of all ages about wildflowers. The center got its start in a project Mrs. Johnson founded with actress Helen Hayes in the early 1980s. Two decades later, it became a research unit of the university.

Today, the center remains an active participant in conservation efforts. It additionally sponsors youth education programs, including Camp Wildflower, which gives elementary school children the opportunity to learn to be botanists and conservationists through participation in a range of investigative outdoor activities.