The city of Portland, Ore., is aiming for 49 total acres of eco-roofs in the city by 2013 (the city’s paying up to $5 per square foot to any home or business that builds one). But what about green roofs outside the urban environment? What’s the appeal there? Blending more with the natural surroundings? Sure, green roofs are beautiful, keep your abode cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter, and tastier for wildlife passers-by. But, we wonder, what stories and mysteries lie beneath the non-urban eco-roofs …

Photo courtesy shropshiretraveller via deviantART

The fourth little pig, having hired an architect, a landscaper, and feng shui consultant, made his slacker porker brothers jealous.

Everyone knew the little red house was an insecure baldy, but no one expected it to grow a toupee.

Photo via Marigreen

Could the shiny stainless ash can tell the sad tale of shunned dwarf Smokey? Doc had finally sent him packing.

Photo via DryscapesMax tried valiantly to let his owners know that he was a vegetarian—the untouched bone, the rooftop veggie garden. Finally, he rejected their sad attempts to woo him home with chicken jerky. It wasn’t even free-range.

Photo via DryscapesThe wheel took comfort in his solo lean against the house. He just couldn’t face the other two on their cushy sedum bed. They would never understand what it felt like to be a third wheel.

Photo via Free Seed Ring

The flower beds for a roof seemed like such a great idea—the strangling root system for a ceiling, not so much.

Photo: Andrea Gandini

Hansel and Gretel’s trail of bread crumbs wouldn’t be able to get them out of this mess. They knew they would soon be fertilizer for the little house of plants.

Photo via Green Architecture Notes

Yes, the poppies would have made them sleepy. Dorothy was relieved for the first time that her fear of heights would work in her favor.

Photo via deconstructingpurpose

The pink ghetto of the roof garden decided that invasion was the only strategy left for getting to the hipster side of the house. Run roots, run!

Photo via design-milkThe window in the chimney was a stroke of genius, in theory. Sadly, no one had yet to peer through it. The grass slip-and-slide: not so genius.

Photo via sweethomestyle: three85

It was odd that after going to all the trouble to install a green roof, he could only truly experience the outdoors through his one tiny window, which is how he liked it.

Photo via ecosalon

Literally bringing the outdoors inside in 3 … 2 … 1…

She had never fancied herself a gardener. Luckily, the voices in her head responded with clear instructions on rooftop crop production.

The plants she’d ordered looked much smaller on the Internet. But strangely, the mullet effect pleased her.

Photo via kdjpcapix of FlickrBessie became obsessed by a certain nursery rhyme the farmer told his daughter involving a moon and a jump. A realist, Bessie was certain her leap from the roof would be a success.

Photo via gwenhwyfearThe houses found it ironic that they were spared from the volcano, only to drown in a sea of grass. Oh, what a world indeed.

Mud? Check. Stones? Check. Gravity-fed spring water? Check. In the building frenzy, however, they’d seemed to have misplaced the hobbits.

Photo via boingboing

They treated themselves to bomb shelter chic. Their grass roof would keep them cool and even shroud them from view in case of air attack … except for that pesky sidewalk pointing like an arrow to the fam. Thanks, Dad.