Garden Room

A last - I now have a proper greenhouse/garden room - a freestanding building at the bottom of my garden. Finished last Friday - and only just in time as the frosts have started.

I am planning to grow exotics in it, but the greenhouse itself is a bit exotic too. I originally planed to buy a standard pitched roof conservatory on the internet and erect it myself. But I soon found that, as it was not going to be attached to the house, I was limited to a maximum height of 2.5 meters (8'2") and a pitched roof would be too high. So the only alternative was to have a lean too, with a low roof pitch. To be precise a reverse lean-to, as the front is higher than the back. However no internet conservatory company offered parts for a reverse lean-to. So I then approached several normal conservatory suppliers. but none of them had ever built one. Finally one large company Northern Trade Windows said that they would have a go.


Because the rear wall is freestanding, their design team decided that it needed a special aluminium "goal post" at the front to give it extra strength.


As none of their other designs use this sort of construction, the design was very much a one off. Its now finished and I am delighted at how it has turned out.




The inside feels quite spacious - its bigger than my sitting room.

At last my mind is free to start thinking about other aspects - so I will have lots of questions on this and the Tropical Gardening forum.

The first question refers to heating. I will certainly be keeping it frost free, which in practice means about 3C or 4C minimum. I might possibly keep it at a higher temperature - though I appreciate it will be expensive. Is there a logical next temperature where things like Cannas, Bananas, and Brugmansia keep green and growing slowly? Last winter I overwintered a number of plants inside my house at a temperature of between 10C and 15c. It made quite a lot of difference, the plants inside the house grew much faster and better the next spring that the ones housed just frost free in my summer house.

What higher temperatures do others keep, and what are the advantages over frost free?

 

Top job that Peter, lovely brickwork , lovely joinery.
A lot of envious gardeners on hear.
You enjoy it, you deserve it.

 

Thanks for your comment Roders. The joinery is all plastic - which hopefully won't rot. I quickly decided that traditional white wouldn't look right - away from the house.

And thanks John. I had it at the back of my mind that some plants would keep green and would grow slowly at a higher temperature. This year it has been so cold that my Brugmansias have been rubbish. But the previous year I overwintered two Brugmansia inside the house at 10C to 15C. The following summer was pretty poor, but these two Brugmansias flowered their socks off and the other 20 that had overwintered as just frost free hardly flowered at all.

I am tempted to try maintaining a higher temperature in this greenhgouse. But the cost will rise alarmingly with every degree, so I am interested in people's views as to what the benefits are and what temperature you need to achieve them.

 

Hiya PeterS.

I just wanted to say, that's cracking job you've done/had done, absolutely fabulous

 

Think you have won the poshest greenhouse on GC award , for that Peter It looks great.!

 

That building is superb!

 

very nice .how I would love something like that,Re your heating ,would it be possible to run a gas pipe under ground and get free standing gas heater to help you keep it warm.Some years ago when I kept fuschias I had a small wall heater fitted and it kept my greenhouse warm/

 

Fantastic Peter, it really looks good, so much space, I have just had a conservatory built and also wondering what I can keep in it although it is much smaller than your one.

 

Looks good to me - interested to hear / read about the decisions you take, as I'm in a similar boat; we had a uPVC-type poly-carb clad lean-to structure attached to the house which we have demolished in favour of something "posher"

The old structure rarely went close to zero, in fact the only time I had to provide serious heat was winter-before-last when we had -16C outside. Generally I only heated it for half a dozen nights of the year (at a guess). In practice it stayed reasonably warm, so Cannas (for example) kept growing through to January, and only shut down for a month before starting up again - cool nights didn't matter much if followed by warm days. So I'm not sure you necessarily need to heat to 10C to get benefit of winter growth - although you will need to, of course, if you choose to have plants that need that sort of minimum temperature - you could have a go at trying to avoid that sort of obsession though??

Dunno if it will turn out to be rightly or wrongly ... but I've taken a couple of decisions differently to you. We are building part conservatory and part orangery (dividing wall/door between the two). The conservatory is heavily glazed, and the orangery much less so. The orangery is Lean-to, South facing, has a rear wall with dense block (for thermal mass) on the inner skin and the insulation is significant (to slightly better than current building regs for a house) so I am hoping that, like it's predecessor, it will need next to zero heat.

Only other difference is that the architect who designed mine has built a very high rear wall (4M) so, at the least, I will be able to over winter some tall plants

Ventilation is the other thing I have given thought to. No one seems to be able to tell me how much I need (Conservatory companies are famous for building buildings that are unbearable in summer ...), but I am minded that Victorian lean-to conservatories had prop-open windows all along the front, and some roof vents too. We have put wide-but-not-very-tall windows high up on the rear wall, and the bottom part of the windows on the front can prop open, in the hope that we can open both to get convection cooling. Time will tell I guess ... finger-crossed.

I'm thinking of buying some Lapageria --- would be nice to have Strongylodon but I think the humidity required would make everything run with water?

 

Look fantastic Peter

My thoughts on keeping plants at higher temps seem to differ from everyone elses.
I only keep plants in my conservatory, min 10C that wont survive at lower temps.

I'd not consider keeping cannas or similar, growing overwinter, in poor light, I know it keeps the interest going, but I dont consider it worthwhile.
In my consevatory I have a dwarf cavendish, some orchids, most Phals and some odds and ends that I'm not sure what they are, most house plants do well at that min temp also, but the half hardies all get frost free in the greenhouse.

 

I agree Only ones I over winter are late-offsets, too small to safely overwinter "dormant". So I buy them dirt cheap in late Autumn ... and spend a fortune keeping them alive over winter

Don't suppose, per chance?, you have an energy-monitor on the heating in your conservatory to know how much you use?

I should have done that last winter with my electric fan heater ... but the new one is plumbed into the central heating, so won't be able to separate out the running cost.

 

Mines running on the house central heating also.

 

It looks fantastic Pete! I'm really rather jealous.

When do we get to suggest new plants to fill it up for you