This photograph represents a serious amongst of angst and irritation that I have experienced over the last few weeks.
I have had my small greenhouse (6′ x 4′) for probably 8 years and it has a small thermostatically controlled electric heater. Anyone who has read this blog for a while will know that I use the greenhouse extensively throughout the year. In recent years it has been home to a tender succulent collection which came through the recent cold winters, when we had temperatures down to -18C for days on end, unscathed.
I have never been tempted to use bubble-wrap. In fact the use of bubble-wrap seems so wrong to me as in my mind it could create condensation and this isn’t great for overwintering plants possibly leading to Botrytis cinerea. However, for some obscure reason I seem to have lost my ability to listen to my instincts, never a good thing, and I have started to doubt myself. Having changed things around in the greenhouse so I can display my alpine collection I have been feeling all at sea and somewhat bewildered about using a sand plunge. So no surprise that reading about others putting up bubble wrap I trotted off and bought a role along with the fiddly plastic widget things for attaching the plastic to the frame.
Now this blog might be called ‘The Patient Gardener” but I am not really a patient person especially when it comes to fiddly and tricky inanimate objects. Over two weekends I have carefully cut panels of the wrap and painstakingly attached them to the sides of the greenhouse which worked reasonably well. Then it was time for covering the roof. What a faff! It isn’t easy to hold up a sheet of bubble wrap while you try to push one of the tiny plastic widgets into the gully in the frame.
That was two weeks ago. In a matter of days the panels on the roof started to droop and it was clear that the clips that are meant to hold the wrap on the side bars were coming off. More time was spent using more clips to secure the panels better but No! the panels were intent on coming adrift which defeated the whole object. Then to make matters worse when I went in the greenhouse this weekend to sort out the problem I found myself in a slow cold shower. My theory about the condensation had proved to be right and there was a constant drip drip of cold water on to my alpines – disaster. The one thing alpines don’t like is winter wet so here I was creating an environment that was exactly what they, and to be honest me, didn’t like. I have also noticed that the light levels are reduced by the opaqueness of the wrap which isn’t what you want for plants growing and flowering over winter as it produces plants with long drawn out stems.
I have to be honest that at this point I had a complete sense of humor failure and the bubble wrap on the roof was removed in a matter of minutes with a lot of muttering and maybe a few profanities. What a complete waste of time and money. It has cost me more to buy the wrap and fixings than I would spend heating the greenhouse even in a very cold winter and I haven’t noticed any increase in the greenhouse’s temperature when the wrap was up.
I am so cross that I didn’t trust my instincts and allowed myself to be swayed by others’ views. I am sure that if you have a large greenhouse then bubble wrap will have an impact your heating bills which will no doubt be much higher than mine. I can also see it is good for partitioning off an area of the greenhouse which you want to keep warmer but it isn’t for me or my plants.
Interestingly on the day I had to dry my hair after getting so wet removing the loathed wrap I went to a lunch with my local Alpine Garden Society Committee and shared my tribulations with others. The general consensus was that bubble wrap wasn’t ideal for alpines and that it would be better if I cover the pots with fleece if the temperatures drop and if I am really concerned then I can put a layer of bubble wrap on top of the fleece to provide a little more protection.
The lesson learnt is to trust my instincts and not follow everyone else blindly if it doesn’t make sense to me.