For several weeks last summer, Yasmin Shaker had papaya for breakfast. Hardly remarkable except for the fact that instead of trekking down to a supermarket, she climbed the staircase above the flat which she shared with her partner, walked across to a small shrub and plucked it herself.
Fifteen months earlier, she had taken the seeds from a papaya, stuck them in the ground and they flourished. There was only one disadvantage: the cockatoos in the Stubbs Road area loved them too, and she had to make sure that she got to the ripe ones before they did.
'We had huge pumpkins last year and lots of chili peppers,' says Ms Shaker, a marketing associate. 'We just bought the peppers, kept the seeds, dried them and planted them. And we have lots of herbs, heaps of basil and tomatoes and oregano and Vietnamese mint.
'It's really easy - you can buy Vietnamese mint in a food shop. Keep it in water until it has roots, plant it. It grows like wild.' Roof terraces are considered assets in Hong Kong but a combination of inertia and transience often means that owners do not make the best of available space. And the sub-tropical weather - either scorching, soaking or chilling - does not encourage much long-term human input beyond the occasional barbecue.
But for those like Ms Shaker or Victor Deleage-Mehra, who crave greenery and a chance to escape the concrete, a little imagination travels a long way.
Mr Deleage-Mehra, an Internet design company owner, and his wife, Frederique, founder of the beauty institute, see their Mid-Levels terrace as a retreat to more restful Asian lands.
