Wednesday
September 18, 2024 
If a well-equipped greenhouse is on your wish list, there are plenty of options, sizes, types, styles and materials from which to choose.
You may just need a modest cold frame for getting a jump on salad greens in March or extending the season into fall. Maybe you’d like something larger with work benches, heat, lights, storage and water to start tomatoes or flowers.
Maybe a grand greenhouse or conservatory room is on your radar as a place to winter over exotic orchids, fabulous ferns and to entertain family or friends. Do you like citrus fruits or the idea of palladium windows and lots of glass and light? Perhaps an orangery fits the bill.
Whatever you crave, there’s something for just about every purpose and pocketbook.
Before planning any construction project — large or small — it’s important to have a defined purpose and goal.
“Decide what you want the structure to do. Be intentional about it, and its use,” said Sharon Kaszan, a horticulturist for Bucks Country Gardens in Doylestown Township.
She said many commercial greenhouse kits will have expansion accessories to the base unit, “so you can customize them for your needs.” For larger construction projects, seek the advice of a qualified building, construction or remodeling professional.
Know where the building or structure will be situated on your property. For best results pick a sun-drenched location.
Kaszan said defining the structure’s use is really important, too. For example, do you need an outbuilding to protect dormant plants or do you want to grow things in a greenhouse?
If you plan to grow things like seeds, seedlings or even mature plants, utilities like heat and a water source will need to serve the structure.
From glass to polycarbonate plastic (a rigid translucent material), there are various types of greenhouse materials available.
“For people who just want a winter house to winter over their topiaries a winter house could be a plastic (film) covering,” Kaszan explained.
The walls would be opaque to allow light, but not direct sunlight, to encourage vigorous growth.
“You may just want to hold the items in ‘suspended animation’ where the plants might be growing roots,” she said.
If you plan to use the greenhouse for growing and potting plant material, keep in mind that with soil may come insects.
“If you want a working greenhouse to grow and pot things up do you want the risk of insects” inherent in a structure attached to the house, Kaszan asked rhetorically.
Separate greenhouse spaces eliminate this issue.
Andrew Eckhoff, general manager at Bountiful Acres in Buckingham Township, offers these tips to consider when thinking about adding a greenhouse or other growing structure to your property.
• Size it right. Make sure the structure is the appropriate size for what you want to do in it.
• Timing. Identify if a cold frame will extend your gardening activities on either side of the growing season or if you prefer to garden year round with the structure. “An unheated cold frame will extend the season — as much as two months earlier in the spring and two months later in the fall,” Eckhoff said.
• Provide ventilation. A heated greenhouse will require some kind of ventilation — whether windows or portions of the roof open or not, you don’t want to bake your tender seedlings when the temperatures warm up or the occasional warm winter day comes. “Good airflow prevents diseases and fungus,” he said.
• Water source. Do you have frost-free access to water? If not, will you hand-carry water to the greenhouse to water new or established plants. Water pipes must be placed underground below the frost line — or at least 3 feet deep, Kaszan said.
• Heat source. From electric to propane or natural gas, a year round greenhouse will require a heat source.
Eckhoff said a client at Bountiful installed solar panels to charge a small electric heater creating an efficient, low-cost and effective way to keep their greenhouse plant materials warm.
Eckhoff said an increasingly popular trend he’s noticed is providing professional plant “hotel” space for clients. Large houseplants, potted plants that wouldn’t survive outdoors and exotic plants can be wintered over at local nursery and garden centers offering these services.
Call in August to secure a spot for the upcoming winter season, he said.
“Plan for plant hotel reservation space from October through May. We provide watering, fertilizing, spraying for insects and pruning. These tasks are all part of the over wintering service,” Eckhoff said.
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