Gary is in the planning stages of building an incredible attached greenhouse in New Jersey. He has graciously offered to share his experiences as he goes through this process. Read, learn, dream, and have fun imagining this fabulous greenhouse-to-be!
Hi Sherry,
Great website!
I will be having a house built sometime next year and am now working with an architect to include plans to construct a horticulturist greenhouse. Exciting, yes, but I'm lost. Can you recommend any sources that could guide me? My vision is to have a greenhouse I can use for year round gardening but I want the structure to be rather good looking from the exterior. I have seen conservatories from companies in England that are constructed on your site and they look fabulous. But can they be used for true greenhouse purposes?
Regards,
Gary
Hello, Gary! Thank you for visiting my website. Those English conservatories do look quite attractive. The ones I recall noticing appeared to have single layer glazing. That would be extremely expensive to heat in a northern climate (for winter gardening). You don't say where you live, so I don't know if single glazing is an option for you.
Also, unless your house is of a design that goes with the style of those conservatories or greenhouses, the greenhouse will look "stuck on" rather than part of your house. To some degree that sort of room always looks "stuck on" and is often used as say, a south wing on a house. Definitely, some house styles look better with this than others. You must judge.
Another issue with those conservatories is that they don't appear to be designed to take full advantage of the winter sun. They are a traditional shape and that's it. The angle of your glazed roof will make a big difference in how well your greenhouse works--to receive the most possible sunlight in winter, and to deflect some of the excessive sunlight in summer. The best roof angle is different depending on the latitude at which you live.
You have the chance to (with the help of your architect) design and build something that will work well for your particular building site and for your location on the globe. You need to study construction issues that are specific to greenhouses such as proper ventilation so to avoid condensation and dampening of insulation as well as air circulation for the plants. Also the angle of the sun at different times of year in your location. There are many other issues.
I have two books to recommend that will help you immensely.
1. "Winter Greens - Solar Greenhouses for Cold Climates" by editor Mark A Craft, publisher/distributor Firefly Books Ltd, 3520 Pharmacy Ave, Unit 1-C, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada M1W 2T8. I just bought this book new while on holiday, so it must still be in print. It is absolutely full of data that will help you plan your greenhouse--an amazing book. Even if you live in a warm climate, this book is very useful.
2. "Building Your Own Greenhouse" by Mark Freeman, publisher, Stackpole Books. More good data regarding construction requirements.
Get these 2 books and read them. They are not primarily concerned with aesthetics, but with function. You can work "good looks" in as you develop a year round functional greenhouse structure. I would work on function first and good looks second. If you really want to grow plants year round, a great looking greenhouse does you absolutely no good unless it works well.
Hope this helps! Thank you for writing.
Sherry
Hi Sherry,
A thousand thank you's for the *very* fast reply to my mail. Yours was exactly the kind of advice I needed to get started. Hopefully, I will do a good job planning my project out from scratch (with no pre-conceived notions) using the guidance you gave me.
If you are interested in hearing about my experiences, I'll keep you informed. Perhaps my trials and tribulations would benefit your followers.
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My Vision: To plan for and construct a working greenhouse in conjunction with the construction of a custom house to be built next year.
Considerations: The greenhouse must have a fabulous looking exterior to fit with the style of the house (French influences with lots of stone and windows) and the neighborhood. The correct orientation to the sun places the greenhouse in a very prominent location (one of the first things you would see when approaching the house).
Also, the greenhouse should be highly functional and as efficient as possible. We live in northwestern New Jersey.
Today I started off by calling two "conservatory/greenhouse" companies - Oak Leaf Conservatories of York, and Wintergarden. These companies had ads in Garden Design magazine with pictures of structures that had the "look" I was searching for. Both were very informative and helpful.
Oak Leaf offers extremely high end, English style Conservatories. They admit that most of their clients use their products to expand their living space (read that: white wicker chairs, pictures on the walls, etc.). However, the representative was very clear that they build *custom* conservatories and could incorporate any number of serious greenhouse features I wanted. The catch was that I had to be able to specify all the required features - something I don't feel I could do at this point. They did not have any kind of resident expert in using their products specifically for greenhouse use.
Their approach is to custom build your item and, after you take care of site preparation and build a foundation, assemble it for you with their construction crews.
Now for the bad news. There is a minimum purchase price in the United States (they are built in England and shipped overseas) of $50,000!!! That thud you may have heard this morning was me falling off my chair!
I did agree to have product literature and a picture book sent to me at a cost of $10 (hey, I'm a sport).
Wintergarden's philosophy is different. They claim to manufacture highly functional, working greenhouses of superior quality but where a strong emphasis has been put on the external appearance. Items can be built to your custom specifications if necessary but at least you are beginning with something that starts off as a greenhouse as opposed to a sunroom.
They also assemble the product on your prepared site with their construction crews.
I spoke directly to Jim Licata, the president of the company. He seemed very knowledgable in greenhouse matters. He even offered to meet with me in NJ the next time he travels this way.
Although we didn't get into a lot of pricing detail, I determined that this type of product would set me back about $20,000. Still pretty high, I admit, but a lot closer to the budget than $50,000! Also, I felt I had someone to play the role of advisor.
That's the extent of my research on greenhouse manufacturers so far. If you know of any other companies I should look into please let me know.
Also, I took your advice and ordered "Winter Greens" and "Building your own Greenhouse" from Amazon.com.
Thanks again, Sherry, for putting me on the right track. I'll let you know how things progress
Regards,
Gary
Yikes! I feel better about the cost of my greenhouse now--after hearing about the Oak Leaf version. Indeed, you are "a sport." Hey! Perhaps you'll be able to deduct that $10 from the purchase price.
Hello, Gary. Definitely (aside from the price issue) I would go with a company that has someone on board who knows about working greenhouses. When paying that amount of money, I would think you should get some professional greenhouse advice along with it.
Here are a few more companies you might call. I don't know anything about them, but their products have the general look that you seem to be aiming toward.
Amdega and Machin Conservatories
1.800.922.0110
3515 Lakeshore Drive
St. Joseph, MI 49085.
Private Garden
1.800.287.GROW
10 Allen St, Box 600
Hampden, MA 01036
Tanglewood Conservatories
1.800.229.2925
Silver Spring, MD
Some other things to keep in mind while planning are the utilitarian aspects of a greenhouse, particularly since this greenhouse will be such a prominent part of your home. Those pretty pictures in the magazines don't ever show you things like control panels, automatic watering system lines, mist systems, or a pile of pots and spray bottles. You will need to plan where to include that sort of thing--either hidden somewhere or up front in an attractive disguise. In my greenhouse (behind our home), when we have to run another line of some sort, we just put it up and call it the "high tech look," but I wouldn't do it that way if my greenhouse were out front.
You are building everyone's dream greenhouse (and the house to go with it, it sounds like--I really like stone). I am very interested in your project, and I'm sure visitors will be also. Definitely keep sending me your story as it unfolds. I'll make it a part of the website and we'll watch your project's progress. Thank you for offering your experiences. We will all benefit. (I will only use your first name and state, unless you indicate a preference otherwise.)
You might find that writing things down helps you also. It's that way for me when working on pieces for the website; now my husband and I are planning a house remodel, and my thoughts written down are helping me figure out some of the problems there.
Please take some photographs when it's appropriate.
Thank you again, and the best of luck with your project.
--- Sherry