Green House

The next step in building a green house is to decide what kind of base we need.

 We eliminated cement since a good one must be done by an expert, which we are not.  A bad one would be hard to remove if we got rid of the green house.

Other choices are small gravel over landscape fabric, just heavy duty landscape fabric,  landscape fabric topped by wood chips, or well-built wooden foundation.

Commercial green houses, which have to be quite large, often use landscape fabric or just bare soil.  The advantage of the wooden one is its sturdiness and solid foundation.

Well, this is what we have now. The weather is bad and we may wait a bit on the start.

Green House

I mentioned earlier that we were planning to buy a small green house, partly to store all the flowers that winter in our basement and partly for my husband to grow plants in the spring.  The obstacle was the large dogwood occupying the spot where the green house would have shelter from the wind, and water and electricity.  Commitment for a green house came when we cut the tree down.



The work has started.  We will

remove  the large nandinas near

the house. They have huge roots.  

The old azaleas in the foreground

will have to moved toward the yard. 

 Much work!

The size we have chosen is 8x8

from Lowe's.  Its cost is about $1300.

 

When the space is clear, we will

have to prepare a base.

Poinsettias

This poinsettia was very big and pretty last Christmas.  Ater several neglected months in our garage,  my husband set it in a corner of a rather shady flower bed for the summer.  It surprisingly survived.

 We are now directed to give it 12-14 hours of darkness from now till December if we want it to bloom.  It goes outside on warm days and then stays in a dark corner of the garage at night.  This obviously does not live up to greenhouse standards

 We will see what happens.  If it does well, we will give it a more elegant place next summer.