Does anyone have a Conservatory???

Well maybe this 18th Century Conservatory is a bit much, might have to go for something a little plainer and smaller. LOL
My goal for next year is to put up a greenhouse. I had hoped to start it this year but Ric and I have joined a local Amateur Greenhouse Assoc. and there will be a series of lectures this winter on building, lighting, heating, pest control and a few other things. So we have decided to wait until next spring. Although we may try to get the footers in this fall. I have all the glass I need stored in my barn, it's been there for years just waiting. It will be glass on three sides with one side against the house with access into the greenhouse from both inside and outside. About 12 X 16 ft maybe a little larger. What I really want is more of a Conservatory, than a greenhouse with benches, although I'd like one of those, too. LOL
I see a tropical garden with a small pond. I was wondering if any of you have anything like this??

Hi Holly,
If i had that conservatory I would never leave it. Wouldn't that be a dream come true. I have a 8.5X20 greenhouse and its just not big enough. I need (notice I said need) a conservatory or sun garden room ( and a barn for that matter) Let us know what you decide on.
Linda

Thank you Linda for responding. I am both thrilled and terrified to see this very long awaited project starting to come together. I have very large old warehouse windows. Ric collected them a good 15 years or more ago when they were tearing down a warehouse. Along with some radiators from an old house, he was thinking of using for heat. They are all glass and metal and will make a nice greenhouse. I have no greenhouse experience but my husband Ric does. Although that was more than 30 years ago. That picture I posted is from Rawlings Conservatory in Baltimore. I was down there one day after visiting several Conservatories and looked around and thought this is what I want. A tropical garden with a small pond. Of course I only have a few house plants right now and they all grow in pots. I can't even think how I will care for them in a conservatory environment. This is the spot that it will go in, against the wall. That's a kitchen window that will open into the greenhouse and a door will have to be added. It will fill the space between the lower wood-deck and the raised brick patio which is about 18 ft and I can come out as far as I want but I don't want to completely block that lower deck so I'm thinking about 12 to 14 ft at most. I think greenhouses like ponds are never big enough. LOL
It sounds like you have a nice size greenhouse what do you grow in it?

Hey Holly!!! Welcome to the Club!! I started planning for my GH in 1990.

Rule #1: Plan your budget carefully!! Then multiply by 4!!! :-)

I did the same thing you are planning, as I built a "Lean-to" off the south side of the house, 32-foot by about 10-foot. Raised the roof on the house, and the GH connects to the gutter line of the dormer. (see pic of construction phase. Note there are no side walls yet in this photo). I can look down into the greenhouse from the second floor rooms. This was a "Do-It-Yourself" kit from Four Seasons Greenhouses.

Two things I wish I had considered: Installing a heating system into the cement floor and BIGGER exhaust fans in the opposing top corners. (Radiant heat in the foundation was too costly for my budget).

Planning for a bigger budget, of course, is a given.

One thing I am REALLY glad I installed is a drain in the cement foundation.

Also, consider intake fans in the lower (near the floor) corners, to bring in much needed cooler air. Air Circulation is always a problem and should probably plan for a couple of fans inside, as well, to help aid in moving the air around. I use one cheap 20-inch box fan.

If the sun is an issue, you might consider some shade cloth for over the top. They come in Percents of Shade. I am probably going to get the aluminum version to use in the two months that really give the A/C a work out, as the GH is open to the house on the second floor, and through french doors on the first. In the wintertime, the heat is GREAT!! On sunny days the furnace does not go on until after the sun sets.

One note on shade cloth, is to get the amount of shading appropriate for what you plan to grow inside. I used to sew (2) large painters canvas drop cloths together and cover the GH with that.

The only other thing I would say to plan for carefully: Tables! (or shelves). MUST be something upon which water will not pool. Do not do what I did and get cheap 8-foot plastic topped tables. I am now building my own out of framing lumber and for the "table top surface" I am using left over bird caging wire. Air circulation under the pots is very important.

And yes! mine is already MOST MINUTE! I am already scheming how to expand it!! (now if only the zoning morons, er .... folk, would not be so obstinate)

Lastly, check your assessment verbiage. If you call it a Conservatory, it is considered LIVING SPACE, if you call it a GreenHouse, it is not assessed as living space and cheaper on the property tax. I now have to fight to have them change it BACK to GreenHouse, as they decided to change it to Conservatory so they could raise my taxes after 15 years!!!!! Even "Enclosed Porch" will increase your property taxes. I think I am going to have to get a lawyer for this, as the zoning people are most difficult to work with here.

Oops! I just wrote you a novel .... I guess that should be enough for starters, eh?

Good luck!! and definitely Research, Research, Research!!!!!

WNYwilleB, Interesting I never thought about appraisals or building permits for that matter. Out here building permits are an iffy issue depending on what your doing. Ours will be on a south facing wall also and we were just talking about how high to go. If we tuck in under the roof line we are limited to about 10ft high with a drop to 8ft. We will need to discuss how high I would like to really go and what kind of plants are most important to me. I really want a tropical garden and with the space I'll be using I know I can't grow the really big ones. Yes I'd love a banana tree but would a dwarf variety be good enough? I really what a tree fern so how much space will I need for that and I want a small pond so there will be room needed for that as well. I already know that I could fill up this greenhouse in no time flat and be looking around for more space. Research and planing will be our winter project. Ric's uncle owned some commercial greenhouses and he worked there with his uncle about 35 years ago. So he knows the basics but there have been many changes since them. He originally wanted to heat the greenhouse with a small coal stove, many very old greenhouses were heated that way long ago. But I've read the coal gases can be bad for some plants and then there is the dirt associated with a coal stove. Our house is both active and passive solar. But we also use a wood/coal stove. On a sunny winter day we quite often have doors and windows cracked open. I will probably put in a single door to the greenhouse, I'd love French doors but I have very little wall space on the south side wall because of all the glass on that wall.
Yes, did you notice that I can run on a bit myself and I love reading a good Novel, don't think you have to limit yourself. Thank you for posting your picture looks like you have a wonderful conservatory (OH, I mean Greenhouse). LOL I would love to see inside if you care to post some more pics.
Here is an old picture of some of my house plants and you can see some of my existing solar glass wall, and it will give you an idea when I say I have very little wall space on my south wall. That floor is an insulated concrete slab that collects heat all day.

Looks like you are painting planting yourself into a corner quickly!! Aaahhhh .... fond memories!!

A lot of the tropicals, while they say they are full sun, tend to not be full sun when young. So, be careful you have enough shade for things, esp. a tree fern. Which, if you have a pond, should make it humid enough, but might be too humid for other things.

Some tropicals can't stand the heat, also. My jasmine, for example, suffers on the full sun hot side until I put it out for the summer or move it over to the dark side.

I got lucky and have a mulberry tree outside the southwest corner, which provides a good deal of shade to the plants on the west side of the GH (covers about half GH), while leaving the east side half bright and sunny for the cacti / succulent collection. Mulberry is nice as you can hack it back and it will re-grow in a couple years. Don't want major limbs over/around glass during wind and ice storms!!

Here is a shot of the "dark side" during the spring migration to the great outside, as plans are in place to construct the deck inside the GH (out from the dining room's french doors) finally, so things will be a lot different, and hopefully have more room to position plants! (and a pond!)

Plans are including the future addition of enclosing the new deck area off from the surrounding GH to create a mini GH in a GH, so to speak. This way I can keep the outer greenhouse colder and the inner one warmer for the winter (vice-versa in the summer)!! I refer to that part as the GghH :-)

I have long admired the way the old Victorian GHs would be divided into microclimates. One for ferns, one for cacti, one for tropicals, etc. Keeping those requiring the most heat nearer to the furnace (hot water) and the coolest farthest.

Oh, I have so much to learn, not only about the greenhouse operation but the plants that I want to grow. Just basic care, I have started to hang out over on the Tropical Forum looking at plants and trying to learn as much as I can. Since our house is solar I have no shade on that side of the house at all. For me shade and cooling may be more of an issue than heating. I love your pictures post more if you can please. I've been thinking that if I move the house plants out into the Greenhouse it will give me more floor space in the house for things that like it dryer. Like Cati. Your right I am planting myself into a corner.
My first thought was I'll move all these out and have more space inside things won't be quite as crowed.... The next thought was "Hey, now I could get this and this and this and make a nice little Succulent Corner". We gardeners are just hopeless.

Took me a while to remember where I saw this thread, but if you want inspiration (and a good dose of envy) check out this set of Greenhouses.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/867188/

Here is the sunny side of the GH where I keep a bunch of the cacti / succulent collection.

P.s. Moving the plants out of the house and into the GH only makes more room in the house for PLANTS!!!! :-)

Thank you for the link. In the last couple of years I have been to the Rawlings Conservatory in Baltimore several times. It's very pretty and nice but not huge. It's broken up into different rooms. There is a Cati Room and a Mediterranean Room and that first picture I used is the Palm House. But this Tropical room was the one that really got me thinking. I could do this. Certainly not on that kind of scale but I could do this.

I have been to other larger Conservatories but I don't think it was until I visited the smaller Rawlings Conservatory that I even thought that was what I could do with a greenhouse. Here is some inspiration for your cacti / succulent collection. I think your collection is pretty impressive. How many do you have?

I think I lost count at 150 (and I tried to only count "mother plants" and not any of their cuttings). Still room for many more. :-)

Nice Conservatory there you have.

The last great Botanical Gardens I visited was the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam. I still need to develop my film from there. I almost forgot about that!! I think Amsterdam is my favorite city I have visited, so far. My Great Grand Parents (mom's side) were Updike (e.g. Opdijk in Dutch, or On the dike - granny was a Potter), so I have someDutch in the genes there somewhere. Oddly, I felt most at home and familiar in A'dam!

One of the oldest in the world, it was founded in 1638 by the city to serve as herb garden for doctors and apothecaries. It contains more than six thousand tropical and indigenous trees and plants. The monumental Palm House dates from 1912 and is renowned for its collection of cycads.

Hortus Botanicus's initial collection was amassed during the 17th century through plants and seeds brought back by traders of the East India Company (VOC) for use as medicines and for their possibilities for commerce. A single coffee plant, Coffea arabica, in Hortus's collection served as the parent for the entire coffee culture in Central and South America.

Likewise, two small potted oil palms brought back by the VOC from Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean, produced seeds after six years, and these were propagated throughout all of Southeast Asia, becoming a major source of revenue in the Dutch East Indies and now in Indonesia.

In 1885-1918 Hugo de Vries was the director of the garden.
Recent additions to Hortus include a huge hothouse, which incorporates three different tropical climates.

Website:
http://www.dehortus.nl/index.asp

If yer patient, you can get them to do this!!

I have the kind of greenhouse you are talking about, but it is not pretty on the outside like a Botanical Garden Conservatory, its functional for the home enthusiast, LOL.

We looked into building a version of what you are describing, with glass panels, and a pretty curved roof, etc and the cost would have been over $100,000. Not affordable.

In the end we decided on functionality over beauty and got a 1700+ sq ft greenhouse with a 20 ft ceiling with all equipment included for less than 1/4 of the cost of the conservatory.

There are no benches, there is no slab. Everything is planted directly into the ground, hung from the ceiling, mounted to something, or hanging on the walls. I have had it now since 2002 and its great. I love it and work out there maybe 4 days a week.

another random photo:

My greenhouse has a 20 ft stream with a small gurgling waterfall, a 35 gallon still poll, and a 50 gallon pond.

Gothqueen,That is just beautiful and what you have is very much what I have in mind. When I talk about a Conservatory vs Greenhouse what I really mean is the function and use. Rather than pots and benches more indoor garden. Not really the type of building. I know that mine will be smaller than I would really like but I do have structural limits if I place it where I am planing. I had hoped to get the foundation in this fall but there are just so many other things that must be done first. I am still expecting to build next summer. I was just recently down in Fl. and came back with a few more tropical plants that are now crowded in my living room with the other extras I picked up over the summer. Silly me bought a Creeping Fig for one of the walls, you know the ones that aren't built yet. LOL
Must have spent too much time in Savannah with those beautiful Fig covered walls.
I would love to see and hear more about your Conservatory.

I would be happy tp tell you about it. I found that what works best for me is "upscape". Once you have planted the floor, that's it for your available space, unless you decide to remove something in order to grow something else. (I actually do that a lot...I will remove a plant that has had its "turn", pot it, and plant something else. I can therefore save my original plant in case I decide I want to replant it later, and in the meantime I use it as an accent plant outside in the warm months). I also make a lot of use of the airspace, and the wall space. I will scare up some photos for you.

I don;t want to seem pretentious because I am new here.

Wow, 1700+ sq ft. Nice!!

I don't believe ANYone on DG knows what you mean by "pretentious!!"

:-)

Since (I have observed) we are such a curious bunch, we soak up any and all input as eagerly as a sponge.

So, change the "p" word to "proud" and post away!

Here's a shot of the "First Fall" of my GH. And, of course, the GH was not all the way finished, but the cold weather forced an early move of the plants inside. Note the roll of fiberglass inside the door!

To think ALL these used to fill every available window space in the house!

It's fun to look back 10 years now and see how teenie tiny all the plants are, inside and outside.

Wow,
A dream come true. Please post more pictures. Is this a kit? It looks wonderful.
Details, we need details.(In case we want to copy,lol)
Linda

Please don't be hesitant. I would love to hear and see more. WillieB is right Proud not Pretentious. Ric and I will have a lot to do this winter planning. Last year we joined a local Hobby Greenhouse Assoc. and this year they are doing a whole series of seminars on building, heating and insect control. Pretty much a start to finish series. My basic plan will be 18ft wide and then out into the yard about 14ft give or take. If we mount the roof under the eave of the house roof line it would be about 12ft high but we have been discussing alternatives to that to give me a little more height. I thought I could grow up the back wall of the house. Pulling the siding off and replacing it with a brick wall. That's where I want my creeping fig to grow. Mount some hangers there for Orchids and other plants.

That's what I did Holly, except, I agree! 12 Foot is too low, so I raised the roof on the second floor .... now I get just under 17 foot, I believe. Stone wall is yet to be installed, as well as the future water fall from the 2nd floor falling into the pond where the kitchen window gets the view from behind.

What better reason do you need to make the rooms upstairs bigger? Or, add a second floor, if you don't already have one .......

(Lottery tickets are in the mail)

LOL WillieB, I do have a partial 2nd fl but the roof lines 1st /2nd floor just won't work.I have a couple of good ideas to raise the conservatory roof an additional 4ft it just won't be able to fit in under the eaves. Which would make construction so much easier. I have given just a little thought to putting it on the side of the house instead of the back that would allow me to make it much bigger and taller. But that would change the access on that side of the house I'd lose about 1/2 of my Veggie garden, access from the house to the Conservatory would not be as convenient and there isn't near as much sun there.

Build it off the front of the house?

:-)

No way after all the stone work Ric did out front for me. LOL
Besides out front is a North facing wall.
The higher stone wall in the back he put in years ago this summer he added the shorter curved wall in the front and also a stone walkway that runs on the other side. SInce we collected all the stone and some of them are pretty big it was a lot of hard work.

Looks awesome!

Willie,
we would call that a "Florida Room" here. It used to refer to a screen porch (before central AC), but nowadays it refers to a glassed in sunporch usually. Most of the houses here have one. I had a great one, about 20 x 20, at my old house with six 8x8 windows that was situated well enough that I got enough natural light to keep a 6x6 indoor water lily pond. The one here at the new house is not so awesome, its about 20 x 8 and doesn't get that kind of great light even though it has the same window space. I do keep lots of plants in there but only in winter...the "pool deck refugees" live in there, LOL.

Here are a couple photos that show the structure of my greenhouse a bit...its made of single thickness corrugated poly, has a gabled roof that peaks at 20'. It does have an overgead sprinkler system, but I only use it when I literally can't find time to water by hand, or when we go out of town. I find if I have to go out there everyday or every other to water, I keep better abreast of things like pest outbreaks and "plants in trouble". Plus, there are dry areas the sprinklers miss, because of all the overgrowth of large plants, so I have to routinely water those anyway.

another lower view from the same perspective

I LOVE how you have everything "packed" in there tight. That is just the way I am hoping mine will be soon!

Right now, I am in the middle of the "greenhouse shuffle" bringing things indoors, trying to find a spot that they will fit into and get the light they need.

Gothqueen, That is just beautiful you certainly have a large variety of plants. I do so love the Fl. rooms that I see when we travel down to Fl. What a wonderful out door living space they can be. We just drove thru your area a couple of weeks ago. I too, am doing the shuffle. Almost everything has been staged in the livingroom about 40 pots. Most of the plants were brought in while we were traveling and were not treated for insects so I am going through the plants and cleaning treating them. A few of the pots like the Coleus will have cuttings taken and then moved and a couple of them have bulbs like Cannas that will be dug up and stored I should be able to get it down to about 30 pots.

sorry to jump into this tread....I've been lurking around this forum getting ideas as I start the designing and planing process of building a house (which of course will include a large green house) I would like to plant directly in to the ground and have no benches or tables (like yours Gothqueen) but I was wondering what to do about flooring and drainage?

A colleague of mine here in Buffalo has a greenhouse, which is built off the backside of the house. Though, not like mine which uses the house heat, this one has its own, separate heat system.

The GH has a foundation that is not cement, but gravel which goes down past the frost line.

No drainage necessary, as the whole floor is drainage. Interesting to note, that some plants, notably a tender jasmine, have been allowed to grow roots into the gravel and grow like no one's business.

that's an interesting idea. I will research it further thanks willieB.

Anytime, batflower!

Keep us in the loop on what you find out and decide!!

Well, that's the thing, I don't have any flooring. Even though my greenhouse is the size of a small house (over 1700 sq ft) I did not have to have a building permit, because we live on land outside the city limits that has agricultural zoning. My structure is freestanding, and is treated by the county codes the same as a "pole barn" that would be used for storing animal feed, hay or housing farm animals. I did have to have an electrical inspection when the electricity was run to it, but that was it.

The way its built is, the main supports are these hollow steel beams that are sunk into concrete at intervals appropriate to be certain that the structure meets the South Florida wind codes for hurricanes (currently that's 120 mph), the overhead strut supports are welded steel girders, and the floor is just, well, SAND. So I was able to dig and plant at will, just like I am planting in the yard. When I am walking in there, I am walking on the ground, like I was out in my yard.

There is no foundation. The glazing goes right down to the ground, and I banked earth around it and planted stuff outside to help seal it. A water line was run from our well up by the house to supply water to the overhead sprinkler system and the hoses, and the electricity comes right off of our own pole (we have only 4 families on our road, so everyone has their own pole and transformer).

If we had had to have a concrete slab foundation, then that would have been a whole other classification of building, and would have defeated my entire purpose. The only way we didn't have to was our Ag zoning. They would not have let us build this type of structure this size within the city limits.

The greenhouse is sited out in the front of the property, and when it gets watered, there is no run off. I do mulch the pathways every season (have to do that soon, LOL) but that's all.

The ground does not ever freeze here, we have no "frost line".

I'm planing on putting in a cinder-block foundation to support the walls but no real floor. What isn't flower beds will be brick but installed as you would a brick patio.
The picture I used to start this thread is the palm house of the Rawlings Conservatory in Baltimore. When I toured the conservatory the director talked about not having a floor in the Palm House. I can't remember exactly what she said but it was something like the beds have about 5ft of special soil and under that is your basic Baltimore dirt.
Here is a picture from inside the palm house.

I haven't decided on a heating system yet either. Ric and I have been tossing around several different ideas. Since our GH will be attached to the house we will be putting in a door from the house directly to the GH and the existing kitchen window will also open into the GH. Also that bump out on the back of the house is my laundry room and will be part of the sidewall of the GH so we have several points where we could direct the heat from the house into the GH. We use a wood/coal stove for our main heat source and quite often have windows and doors cracked in the winter to let out the extra heat. Especially on sunny days as we also have a solar slab in the living area.
We have also talked about solar heat for the GH. Ric has been collecting old radiators and we thought we could paint them black and fill them with a water/anti-freeze solution and they would collect some heat. Also the brick floor area and the back wall will be replaced with brick so that would also collect some heat. We have also thought about portable electric heaters that could be used to supplement the heat we could get from solar gain and by opening the house into the GH.
There has been some discussion about a small coal stove for the GH. Ric's idea not mine, I have heard that coal gas isn't good for some plants and have issues with the dirt associated with coal stoves. Ric pointed out the many years ago almost all commercial GH's were heated with coal. One of the seminars run by my Hobby GH Assoc. this winter is going to be about heating your GH. I will be very interested in hearing what they say.
Here is a shot of my living area from last week when I finally got all the plants in from outside. There are about 40 pots in here right now. I will be getting rid of a few of them like the coleus pot that I will take cuttings from and then remove the pot from the house but I think when I'm done I will still have about 30 pots to over winter inside.

I use a propane heater. Its 200,000 BTU. Its connected to a Step Controller that automates the greenhouse. A sensor detects the ambient air temp, and if it falls below what I have pre-set in the control panel, it starts to manipulate equipment automatically. First it will close the 36 foot long back vent, then it will turn on the HAF fans in the attic to circulate heat, then it will kick on the heater.

For cooling in summer it works in reverse: opens vent, kicks on HAF fans, then kicks on one 36" exhaust fan...if that's not adequate it kicks on the 2nd 36" exhaust fan, then if that's still not enough it turns on the swamp cooler.