Building a hothouse or greenhouse

[The Palm Nut]

Hi all,

Iam thinking of building a hothouse and would like to see those of you that have one in your garden. Iam sure many styles are out there and before I build one, I'd like to see them.

Thanks Mike

[MattyB]

Mike may I suggest performing a search. Go to 'more search options' and use the '+' sign to search for multiple words to narrow your search. For example: +build +greenhouse will yeild you some good threads, also try +contruct +greenhouse, etc.

[Tyrone]

Mike, are you talking about a heated hothouse or what is more technically called a cold frame? Do you have an area that gets northerly sun? I built a few years back what is actually a cold frame against a north wall of my house. The wall warms up during the day and releases heat at night. On the coldest night it can hold 5-7C higher minimums in there, but on a warm night it may add a couple of degrees. I don't use any extra heating on it. During the day in winter except for on a cloudy day it can be low to mid twenties in there. On a warm winters day it can approach 30C. On a cloudy winters day it will be almost the same inside as out, except your plants are protected from the cold winds.

Externally I covered it with white 70% cream shadecloth. About 10cm under this I've put in a clear laserlite roof. In summer I add another layer of shadecloth inside underneath the laserlite to control light levels, as the clear laserlite is a magnifying glass. On days forecast for more than 28C I leave the door open. The laserlite roof has a gap of about 3cm where it touches the wall and is high pitched. On the lower side it doesn't seal totally either, so you get a sort of a convection current happening naturally underneath the roof. I have temp controlled misters which come on when temps hit 32C. Only a few seconds of misting generally and the temp stays down. Even on hot 40C days the misters may only come on for 30 second blasts maybe 4 or 5 times a day. On really hot humid days they come on more often, but the temp still tops out around 32-34C. We had a 45C day here once and even with the door open it was cooler inside my bright cold frame.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

Best regards

Tyrone

[cagary]

Here's a photo of mine shortly after completion about six years ago It came as a pre-drilled, pre-cut kit. Its about 17' X 37' I built about a four foot knee wall as a foundation. This gave me a lot more height inside. Its 12 feet at it peak.

There is no real floor inside. The plants are growing right in the ground. Its like a raised bed with a greenhouse bolted to the top of the wall. I dug down about 3 feet before building the wall and then filled up the walled area with 3 more feet of good sandy loam, so all together there is about 6 feet of good soil that the plants can grow in.

Putting the kit together was not easy at all, but I think that having everything pre-drilled and pre-cut made it a lot easier than trying to build something from just a plan.

[LJG]

Gary has one of the nicest residential jobs around. Killer.

[Frank in Vero]

That thing is AWESOME!!!

[BS Man about Palms]

Thats brilliant Gary!!

Luv it!

[Shon]

Wow that thing is awesome.

[cagary]

Thanks everyone for your kind words.

Right now the greenhouse has many different kinds of tropical plants growing in it, from Soursop and Wax jumbu fruit trees to Heliconia and ginger plants.

This spring I plan on removing most of them to make way for palms. I hope to grow short, cold and wind sensitive palms like Calyptrocalyx, Geonoma, Licuala, and shorter varieties of other cold sensitive palms right in the ground

I keep the greenhouse at about 60 degrees with a natural gas heater.

[Davidl]

Gary that is a nice cold frame. I would like to have one to grow tropicals. thanks for posting

[Alicehunter2000]

NOW THATS A GREENHOUSE!!

[epicure3]

Gary, are you able to open it up in the summer time if you wanted to? It really looks great and THAT certainly looks like a lot of work. Handy if you have some land as well.

[cagary]

There are solar powered vents in the roof which begin to open when temperatures start to rise.

There is an arm attached to the vent. The other end of the arm is inside a cylinder that is filled with wax. The heat expands this wax and pushes the arm out and the vent opens. When the day begins to cool, the wax starts to shrink and pulls the vent back to the roof.

There is also a thermostat that controls vents that are located in the front and back sides of the greenhouse.

I also have covered the roof with shade cloth.

With all these controls, I've never had any trouble with temperatures getting too high inside.

[The Palm Nut]

Hi Gary,

That is a fine looking hothouse and if I had that living in your area or anywhere along the west coast, I would turn the inside into a jungle and add a few colourful trained birds and I would never want to leave the place.

Great job.

Mike

[The Palm Nut]

Hi Tyrone

Iam talking about a hothouse but not heated, Iam on solar now so the days of heating palms are over. It would be small, certainly no where near the size that Gary has. Iam short on space and available sunny spots, so 3M sq max in size is all I could fit in. Yours sounds pretty elaborate have you got any photos of it. Mine would be mainly used for keeping palms that survive outside during winter but look terrible after winter with all the blackspotting, particularly when they are young. As well as rejuvenating house plants and kick starting early tomato plants prior to spring.

Cheers

Mike

Mike, are you talking about a heated hothouse or what is more technically called a cold frame? Do you have an area that gets northerly sun? I built a few years back what is actually a cold frame against a north wall of my house. The wall warms up during the day and releases heat at night. On the coldest night it can hold 5-7C higher minimums in there, but on a warm night it may add a couple of degrees. I don't use any extra heating on it. During the day in winter except for on a cloudy day it can be low to mid twenties in there. On a warm winters day it can approach 30C. On a cloudy winters day it will be almost the same inside as out, except your plants are protected from the cold winds.

Externally I covered it with white 70% cream shadecloth. About 10cm under this I've put in a clear laserlite roof. In summer I add another layer of shadecloth inside underneath the laserlite to control light levels, as the clear laserlite is a magnifying glass. On days forecast for more than 28C I leave the door open. The laserlite roof has a gap of about 3cm where it touches the wall and is high pitched. On the lower side it doesn't seal totally either, so you get a sort of a convection current happening naturally underneath the roof. I have temp controlled misters which come on when temps hit 32C. Only a few seconds of misting generally and the temp stays down. Even on hot 40C days the misters may only come on for 30 second blasts maybe 4 or 5 times a day. On really hot humid days they come on more often, but the temp still tops out around 32-34C. We had a 45C day here once and even with the door open it was cooler inside my bright cold frame.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

Best regards

Tyrone

[cagary]

Hi Gary,

That is a fine looking hothouse and if I had that living in your area or anywhere along the west coast, I would turn the inside into a jungle and add a few colourful trained birds and I would never want to leave the place.

Great job.

Mike

Mike,

Thank you. I do enjoy spending time in there. No birds yet, but a few lizards have taken up residence. They love the warm winters!

It started out nice and neat.

Then at one point it did become a jungle!

[cencalpalmguy]

Hi all. That's a great looking and functional greenhouse i'm sure Gary. One of these days I hope to have one that size, not neccessarily heated though. Right now I am using a 10'x20' enclosed carport I bought a Costco for $199. (poor man's greenhouse) It has a steel tube frame with tan canvas covering it and my palms and cycads seem to be doing fine in it. It allows some light, blocks the wind and frost and stays slightly humid. So far so good!

Chad

[ariscott]

Mike,

Thank you. I do enjoy spending time in there. No birds yet, but a few lizards have taken up residence. They love the warm winters!

What are you going to do once the trees get too big??

Regards, Ari

[Zeeth]

That would be really nice to have a greenhouse like that!

[cagary]

Mike,

Thank you. I do enjoy spending time in there. No birds yet, but a few lizards have taken up residence. They love the warm winters!

What are you going to do once the trees get too big??

Regards, Ari

Ari,

All the tropical fruit trees inside are coming out and will be planted out in my garden. Most of the palms I plan on planting inside will be shorter types like Calyptrocalyx, Areca (dwarf types), Geonoma, etc. I'm thinking of also planting suckering palms like Ptychosperma burretianum and cut out the main trunk when it hits the 12 foot ceiling, but it will be years before this becomes a problem.

[The Palm Nut]

I havent come across a tropical rainforest tree that can't be trained to keep its size small. This aspect of having such a large hothouse make's for a lifetime challenge.

Cheers

Mike

What are you going to do once the trees get too big??

Regards, Ari

[Don]

heres some pics of mine nothing fancy but should work fine.

[LJG]

What do you plan on growing in that thing Don?

[Don]

Ive started several palms from seed, and have some tropical palms and other plants that wont winter outside here. Im zone 8a wanting to be alot more.

I might try some flowers to generate cash for more palm seeds.

[cagary]

That's huge! How big is it?

Are you going to heat it?

[Wai`anae Steve]

heres some pics of mine nothing fancy but should work fine.

Don that is big, but is the plastic thick enough to stand up to things blowing around in a strong wind?

[Don]

Just had solid 45mph winds and approx 7" of rain and no problems.

PLastic is 5 year commercial grade for greenhouses,im saving money for a solexx covering more durable ie: lasts longer.

The dimensions are 80x25x12

Hopefully will only need heat a few times and not a long duration.

[Don]

I dont need plastic on greenhouse until after hurricane season.

[edbrown_III]

I built this one in 1986 on a shoe string budget. It is 4"x4" pole construciton--- anchored in concrete it survived the 92 storm of century and Jean in 2004

Its open truss 2x4's--- I am gradually adding a 12' wing heres a few photos of explanation

[ellidro]

Just built mine. Here is a link to a thread.

http://www.palmtalk.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=20992