I am a few days late with the Greenhouse Year post but I have been distracted with the RHS Chelsea Flower show. Whilst inspiring in many ways not least the plant quality it is a little dismaying to come home and see my paltry efforts.
Anyway, the greenhouse house has been through another significant transition this last weekend. The dahlias and pelargoniums that were occupying the floor and lower parts of the staging have come out and are now on the patio waiting to be planted out or potted up.
I have still to move the tender succulents out but there is enough chaos on the patio at the moment so they will have to wait. I am also not in desperate need for greenhouse space so the sense of urgency that I normally have in terms of the greenhouse isn’t present. This is because this is the first year since I have had the greenhouse that I haven’t grown tomatoes or cucumbers. The last few years it has been a struggle to get the tomatoes past blight and last year I just grew cucumbers which were fine but there are only so many you can eat. To be honest my heart just isn’t in growing edibles and I neglect the plants and then feel bad.
I’m not sure what will occupy the greenhouse over the summer months now that I have no vegetable plants to accommodate. There are some Peruvian Daffodils (Hymenocallis) which will flower in July and I might spread the succulents out a bit more. There are a few other tender plants which I might now have room to show off better.
I have been moving the pots of spring bulbs into the greenhouse once the leaves have died so that the bulbs can rest and benefit from the heat. I’m not sure if this is the right approach but I know alpine growers do this with alpine houses so I can’t really see the difference. We will have to wait and see.
So there is my greenhouse in May. The weather is warming up now so the door is left open most of the time. I don’t tend to bother with any shading as I don’t think it helps with good strong plant growth plus as soon as I put shading on the weather changes and we have a gray and damp summer! I think air circulation is more important and the small electric heater can also be used as a fan to circulate air. I also wet the ground down quite a bit to keep humidity levels up and the gravel beds also help with this.
As I have said before I didn’t start this monthly post with the intention of hosting a meme but if you would like to use it as an excuse to show us your greenhouse that would be great as I think greenhouses are poorly covered in the media and blogs.
