When a shopping centre in the city closed its top-floor car park in 2019, nobody knew what to do with the empty space. Today, that roof is home to one of the most unusual gardens in the country. More than 120 local families grow vegetables, herbs and flowers there, and visitors come from other cities to see how it works. The idea came from Lucy Evans, a retired biology teacher who lives nearby. She asked the owners if she could use the roof for one summer as an experiment. They agreed on one condition: the gardeners had to pay for their own soil and water. In the first year, only eighteen families took part, and most of them used old bathtubs and wooden fruit boxes as planters. Today, anyone who lives in the neighbourhood can rent a planting box for 400,000 tomans a year. The money pays for water, tools and a part-time gardener, who gives free advice on Thursday afternoons. The garden is open every day from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., but it closes from December to February, when it is too cold for most plants. Members say the garden has changed more than their diet. “I used to know nobody in my building,” says Sam Wilson, who has grown tomatoes there since 2021. “Now I have friends of every age.” However, the project also has its problems. The roof can only hold a limited weight, so the boxes cannot be deeper than 40 centimetres. And the waiting list for a box now has over 300 names on it. Next spring, the team plans to open a second roof garden on top of a hospital, where patients and staff will be able to grow herbs together.