Four Season Greenhouse

My very first thread guys..
So, last year we ( ok ok .. my husband) built me new toy ( or I would say one of my dreams came true). We did everything ourselves - from research, architectural design to making windows ourselves.
Its 13sq meters in total. 5sq m was given to tropical plants and are heated in winter - cooled in summer, 7sq m was given to edible stuff such as tomatoes.

"Lets make greenhouse which wont have any 90° corners" - and that being said, a modern greenhouse was built in our garden.

I hope that photos will explain majority of things, but any questions are very welcome ( I can assure you - everything has been thought-through and has a an explanation).
Tripple wall polycarbonate (16mm) .

 

A little bit of what was happening inside in autumn.
That plant in the soil is my headache - dahlia imperialis. Guess who wants to cheat with growing it second year just not to be killed by frosts.

 

So tomato part I believe is finished. Nothing to invent here. Now for the tropical part I still need to think about the shelving... install a portable air con and most important - do the shading before spring!!

 

Nice lot of space in there, but I think you will need a bit more height for D. imperialis

 

Thank you! Oh no - D. imperialis will be kicked out as soon as tomatoes comes in place. To be honest i did not expect it to survive even in greenhouse - i thought temperature might drop below 0 inside. But apparently it did not!
Fingers crossed in 2022 i will see blooms. If not... We will have serious talk.

 

Mine survives outside, but it has never flowered, but I think there is another large growing species that is similar but more likely to flower in the UK.

It dies down to the tubers over winter like other Dahlias.

 

Looks very good nice and big but probably not big enough they never are .
Are you thinking of dahlia Coccinea palmeri Pete ? I nearly tried Imperials glad I didn't no chance here of flowers.

 

I cant remember the name of it @Perki, but that doesn't ring any bells, I think it might be @NigelJ growing it.

 

There is chances - people manage somehow grow them and they flower (not talking about Kew Gardens haha )

One day.. one day..

 

Like the pitcher plants in the washing up bowl.
@pete I have Dahlia coccinea but not palmeri. Also got D campanulata and D imperalis caerula both from seed last spring. D excelsa will be split this spring and planted in the ground, can get quite big I believe.
D imperalis I've had in the ground outside for about 4 years now. It comes out of the ground like a rocket in spring, can make 12ft; this year after a late start and slugs it made a very bushy 8ft. Every year I get flower buds forming which either get blown off in autumn gales or a frost takes them off. The cold takes the buds off the reserve plant in the greenhouse as well.

 

Hi,

A great building job there - plenty of space, wish we had more !

For shading we use this Vitax liquid on the outside of our twin wall polycarb, goes on easily and comes with a cloth and hose as the end of the season.

Bit puzzled why you want an air con unit for a tropical area ? ... plus quiet expensive to run.
Would have thought a water misting unit would have been more suitable along with some form of automated vent openers.

 

Thank you guys!

@ricky101 For the shading, sadly, I need some sort of a cloth - my plants at summer peak needs around 50-60% shading plus if cloth is hanged with air gap outside - it reduces heat as well. So I am not sure will that white paint help.. Does it say anything about percentage?

Aircon for tropical greenhouse sounds crazy, isn't it? The truth is - I am committee member of Orchid Society of GB - and 90% of my tropical plants are orchids. Moreover - its a cold loving species such as pleurothallidinae subtribe. For my ideal "Tropical greenhouse" it should be no more than 16°C. Wet concrete floors, passive and active ventilation and shading with some air gap helps, but because greenhouse is facing south - I doubt i will manage to lower temperature that much with those methods. Humidity for that tropical place is always aimed at 90% with humidifiers, but then again.. in summer its not enough..
(someone TRIES really hard for cloud forest environment )

@JWK windows aka vents are not automatic and I was thinking actually install them or not. The question is how they behave when raining? Toms doesnt like water and if its summer time - they wont close isnt it?

 

@DieAna The paint on shading will help, how about agricultural fleece inside the greenhouse, may not be pretty but will shade.
I've had automatic vents on all my greenhouses and had no problems, rain tends not to come in even if they don't fully close fully.
By the way that looks like a nice group of orchids and I hope hope to see some pictures as they flower.