Can we tour your greenhouse?

Holly, we live in a sub-tropical climate but try to make it pure tropical with our fancy and fussy plants from regions of Central America and elsewhere where no freeze has ever been seen. The plants react with horror at any length of such torture. I lost half of my croton collection last winter and I loved the various colors so much. Turns out that certain varieties are much fussier then others but how is one to know.

On our recent trip to Costa Rica, a native habitat of so much tropical flora, we saw fields of crotons just growing in the wild.

Oh yeah we can get freezes.....I'm farther north than fred, and if I'm going to plan on leaving it in the ground, I look for zone 8b-9a plants and still sometimes hope for the best ! Otherwise, back up cuttings, or it lives in a pot. Many things didn't come back till June ! this year, and are way behind where they should be by now.
I have a smaller version of fred's greenhouse, and it's not big enough, so still will be lugging some things inside the barn or house, or praying for a "normal" 9b winter. I even use mine in summer for starting cuttings, and other's that don't like the variable weather we can get here in summer, hot dry windy, hot humind rainy, hot dry still, just plain hot and NO rain......you get the picture. There's a saying here.......just give it 5 minutes, the weather will change.

LOL!!! I thought that was La.

WOW Fred, What a shot, love the crotons I only have one but hope to pick up another later on. I remember reading a book based in the tropics and it described a house with a croton hedge. I think that would be just beautiful.

Holly in CR they stick stuff in the ground and it grows. The hedges on the side of the roads were all planted as sticks. They then grow with trimming into thick hedges.

I have long wanted to go to CR. I was going to join a group of divers for a Dive Trip there several years ago but decided I couldn't make it. Lucky I did as the trip turned into a mess with some really bad weather and the diving was either canceled or bad. Still I would love to try a trip again.
I love when I come down to Fl. and see plants that I only grow in pots growing in their full glory.

OK, last picture on this humongous thread and almost 10,000 views

My baby has arrived

Yeah Fred !!!! I think you'll be very happy with it. !

Wow, that is a beauty!

So now that I've moved to Bradenton, I really wondering why it is that yall need greenhouses???? but then it has been 30+ years since living in FL in the winter so maybe it does get cold enough to need one.

Any updated pics of your greenhouse and how it is doing today, that you care to share???

Jan

Jan, If we continue to have winter's like we have had in the last 3 years....YOU'LL NEED YOUR GREENHOUSE. !

We still don't have ours up. We have had so much rain that we are pressed to get everything done when things dry up. I will post pics when we do.

I know from talking with dad that this year 2010 there were some frosted nights here. I'm just so happy to be away from up north and enjoying the heat, although since we arrived it really hasn't been too bad, well not what I was thinking I would have to get use to, folks keep saying oh just wait it will be very hot and I'll be crying for the north, but this is one Floridian who is happy to be back in the heat. LOL

I had a 15 foot hoop house up north now you are making me regret leaving it behind....

Jan

Jan,
These last two winters are two of the coldest I can remember since moving here in 1978. We had multiple nights in the lower 20's and 2009/2010 winter upper teens ! Yup, that hoop house might have come in handy.

oh no...... but I now know how to make a really cheap one using pvc so should it get that cold again I can run out and pick some up. I hope for all our sakes we have warmer than those temp winters from now on....LOL

Jan

Here's mine! Just a little guy. Most of yours are bigger than my house! Lol

*knock*knock* come in!

Biker trash=weed free flooring. Before this it looked like i was starting a sumac nursery. Lol

After the overhaul, before i moved everyone back in. Wow it was roomy in there!

My potting station clean!

Then there's every other day. Lol

Some of the current tenants

Just this morning I was thinking I need to clean the GH to get ready for fall, but it was in the high 90s in the shade today, so it will have to wait. Outlaw, your gh is about the size of mine, good just for me. Isn't it amazing what that sunny space can do for your mood?

This message was edited Aug 23, 2011 10:32 PM

Home to lots of cuttings, mostly hydrangeas and rose of Sharon.

It only stays clean for a week, or till i get all caught up with all the other projects! Lol. Some day it would be great to have a large heated, planted greenhouse, but for now this is all i need.
Sorry, wrong pic of the clean potting bench. Here it is. A sight not often seen. Seems like it's always in use!

Looks like a real nice spot. Bet you will have hours of fun out there playing with your plants. LOL on the cardboard floor, I just layered part of my yard with cardboard and threw mulch over it. I use it instead of landscaping fabric around some of my plants.
Ric and I have been working on our GH. He has it almost up. Just the structure for this winter. Things like heat, lights, fans and benches will come later.

I live in Portland in a crime riddled neighborhood. Before I moved in there were some squatters in the garage with a secret room in the back of the garage. I ended up getting frustrated with the look of the crack shack and decided to do something about it so I turned it into a small glass greenhouse. I will post progress pictures... about 1/2 way through the process I almost cried because I was overwhelmed with the amount of work that needed to be completed by first frost to save my tropical plants but I think it turned out okay. I recycled about 75% of the materials we took off the building and constructed about 90% of the new coverings from recycled glass from old sliding glass doors and french doors for the front.

Thank you everyone for sharing your photos and thank you GothQueen for thinking of this idea... I will share more photos soon.

Oh, eric I love the greenhouse and your yard is beautiful, looks so tropical, would love to have a greenhouse like that one. Wow you made a beautiful improvement to your yard and neighborhood, I am always so impressed with the visions people have and that they actually can get it accomplished.

I just realized that I never came back and posted GH pictures in this thread. You may have seen it in other threads. It was wonderful this spring. We put a couple of inexpensive heater fans in there this past spring and used it for our annual plant plugs and seeds. Worked just great. Ric decided to heat it for the winter and picked up a nice gas heater at a discount. They are coming in a few weeks to put in a gas bottle and many of the tropical plants in the gardens will be overwintering there this year.

What an amazing recovery of space, Eric, turning that building into greenhouse and making something positive out of something terrible.

Holly, beautiful yard and greenhouse! Thank you all for sharing your green dreams with everyone here, and for the thread.

My greenhouse is still under construction, but my avocados, tiny lemon trees I planted from seed (along with some avocados), a pineapple I planted from a store-bought pineapple, along with tomatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, beans, etc are all still in the little 4x8 hothouse, soon to be transferred. We have already had several days of frost so it will be a relief to get the GH finished.
1. the little hothouse that stays so warm without a heater (covered for a chilly night)
2. the green 14x16 dream in progress (barrels full of water are to help heat it)
3. Fertilizer manufacturers

Holly love the greenhouse, the walkway, and the way you have a fence to hold up the glads. Beautiful. Let me know how your heating goes I am in zone 5 and curious what heating a greenhouse would be like. I had a lean to greenhouse on my old house but it was smaller and leaned onto a brick fireplace which held heat and I loved it.

Solace please post pics of your building the greenhouse I would love to watch.

Just got home from a couple of weeks at the Beach. So I am playing catch up on the threads and in the gardens. Need to get the houseplants and tropicals inside very soon. They are coming next week to place the gas tank for the heater. Ric has to get it installed and plants moved inside. We have an insulated concrete slab floor that will give us some solar gain and black radiators that will be filled with antifreeze for more solar gain.

We have already had two frost, light ones but you know those tropicals aren't wild about them...rofl.
Found this greenhouse being made not far from where I live, just a couple of changes I would like which is a solid north wall since I live out where the winds blow like crazy and covered with the type of covering you have instead of single type. Since I am zone 5 and you are zone 6 we aren't too far apart so I was really interested in what it was like to heat it in the winter time?
This greenhouse is built to what ever size you can afford..rofl. I started to say whatever size you want, but my wants are always bigger than my affords...rofl

That is nice looking. Ours is a basic Harbor Freight GH with extra support that Ric added to help with the wind and snow load of our winters. It did very well last winter and he has been very pleased with the modifications. Last spring we used small electric heater fans for a couple of months while we used it for seed starting and annual plugs. This will be the second winter and the first winter heated so it will be a new experience for us. The new heater is a Heatstar unvented lp/gas heater. Ric is going to build a head house on the north west end of the GH that will protect that side and give extra storage space. Not sure he will get that done before winter so we may not have that protection in place for this winter but he is also looking at some type of poly film coating for extra winter protection.
Solace, I have a few of those Fertilizer manufacturers here. I find they are good at pest control, too. LOL

happgarden that is one pretty g/h. I know you will spend many enjoyable hours in there during the cold weather. I bought a harbor freight G/H kit and replaced the aluminum with wood and it looks a lot like yours and I completely packed it the 1st year and then had to add thick plastic butcher door type sides to the back awning at our guest house. That is now full and I'm still having to bring plants inside the house.

Never big enough......lol they told me the same thing about water garden they will never be big enough.

Haven't bought anything yet but I really like your harbor freight greenhouse. I read a lot of folks have bought h.f. and are really happy with them. I sure don't want to buy the wrong thing since this will be my only shot at this. I like what your walls are made of. I read a lot of folks use bubble wrap to add more insulation on the north. Kind of looks like normal bubble wrap but on steriods...rofl

I've heard of that. We don't really get that cold down here. If the weather drops below 40 I have a little electric heater for each of the G/Hs. As long as we don't loose electric, I'm OK. I need to find an alternate means to heat beside the electric in case we do loose it.

Happgarden, There were several blogs that Ric used that he found very helpful. They really had very good directions and helped make the GH much nicer and more stable and more efficient. This is the thread Ric started that showed some of the things he did to our GH and it also has a link to the Blog.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1243490/

This message was edited Oct 9, 2012 8:59 AM

Thank you Holly I will check that out....

As for weather not dropping below 40! I wish, we have already been in the 20's rofl..... We can go below 0 and windy...heavens the winds can get horrible, but let the weather hit 100 and not a drop of air.... funny how it works that way....

In my first greenhouse I used a small kerosine heater to heat with back then, but I think the cost of kerosine (unless only used on emergency basis) would eat you alive now a days. Wish I had that greenhouse back ;( DH built it and it had the honey comb panels on the top for insulation but the walls were all windows that I could slide open, it faced south and was a 'lean to' type against the south wall of the house that had a brick fireplace chimmeny that ran all the way up threw the greenhouse. Great solar gain, the floors were brick we got from an old hotel they were tearing down. Don't think I can con him into building another from scratch.

It is really nice to have someone to build things for you. I am very lucky that way also. With a DH and 2 sons that can build anything. It is really nice that Ric also has a great interest in gardening so I don't have to work too hard to talk him into a project.