Northeast Gardening: Indoor Blooms & things that get you through the winter., 1 by bbrookrd

bbrookrd wrote:
PollyK, Our greenhouse is not heated except from the sun and the wood stove in the house that we divert the waste heat back into the greenhouse to heat it before sending it up the chimney. The GH is the main source of heat for our house as a passive solar collector of heat.

We do have back up heat aside from the wood stove, which we try not to use because fuel cost are higher on Nantucket than almost any place in the USA. We built the house after the last oil crisis in the early 80's and designed it around the GH. It is a true machine.
Its first function is to be a free heat source, second as a wonderful place to hang out and grow plants. We have never lost much to the cold, but it does dip down pretty close to freezing at times and it gets wicked hot at other times. So if a plant is a finicky or too tropical, it gets tossed. We have a hand crank to open up the vent and a window at one end and a door at the other. It runs the whole width of the south side of the house. It works great unless it is cloudy or we get a lot of snow.

I love those cyclamen, but I not real good at growing them, though I have a few hardy ones who sometimes bloom for me in the dead of winter. I have never seen a sinningea and will have to go look that one up. Thanks Patti