In order to understand the effect of runoff retention and pollution load control for vegetation roofs during rainfall events, the evaluation criterion of vegetation roof performance is redefined and two vegetation roofs are established artificially based on the code for the design of roof greening, which is investigated during rainfall events. Results show that ophiopogon japonicus roof can delay the production of runoff by 25〖XC半字线.tif,JZ〗48 min compared to the rain occurring and retention runoff volume by 40%〖XC半字线.tif,JZ〗58%, while sambucus dhinensis roof can make the generation of runoff 60〖XC半字线.tif,JZ〗130 min later than the rain beginning and runoff volume retention can be as high as 54%〖XC半字线.tif,JZ〗80%. In addition to PO 3-4 P, the reduction of pollution load of NO -2 N, NH3 N, TP, COD, TN and NO -3 N by both vegetation roofs can reach 95.1%〖XC半字线.tif,JZ〗98.6%, 87.2%〖XC半字线.tif,JZ〗93%, 72.4%〖XC半字线.tif,JZ〗83%, 76%〖XC半字线.tif,JZ〗81.8%, 68.7%〖XC半字线.tif,JZ〗78.4% and 40.9%〖XC半字线.tif,JZ〗60.6% respectively. The level of pH, COD, NH3 N and TP in vegetation roofs runoff can meet class Ⅲ surface water standard. Meanwhile, both vegetation roofs have similar effect in neutralization acid deposition (i.e., from 5.8〖XC半字线.tif,JZ〗6.0 (in rain water) to 7.0〖XC半字线.tif,JZ〗7.6 (in eco roof runoff water)). Plants grown on vegetation roofs can influence the performance of vegetation roofs. Based on the results, ophiopogon japonicus has an advantage of sambucus chinensis in controlling phosphorus pollution, while sambucus chinensis manifests better in reducing nitrogen load. Vegetation roofs are becoming an important urban landscape more and more, and study results in this paper provide references for the improvement of vegetation roofs construction and more reasonable evaluation of their running performance.