I had the pleasure of spending the last day of February at a regional meeting of the Perennial Plant Association at The Morton Arboretum near Chicago. “Ready, Set, Grow!” was the theme of the daylong symposium, and are we ever! I got home all fired up to start some perennials from seed. Growing perennials from […]
The weather report may still be full of blizzards, but once Ground Hog Day rolls around, springtime becomes less of a memory and more of a prospect. That’s when it’s worth thinking about buying or building a cold frame to get a jump on the growing season. A cold frame is a low box with […]
I’ve been running into a lot of glasshouses in my midwinter reading. I just finished reading up about Edward VII, son of Prince Albert, who dazzled the world with the Crystal Palace in London in 1851. Albert was a better exhibition organizer than he was a father, but the book reminded me what a remarkable […]
If you have a heated greenhouse, you have a big advantage in growing amaryllis, those bulbs with huge, dramatic flowers that are such popular holiday gifts. Pretty much anybody with a bright window can get an amaryllis bulb to bloom, but to keep the plant alive and get it to flower again next year requires […]
One of the delights of a greenhouse is the opportunity to grow citrus fruits in pots. You’re never going to rival the Florida citrus industry, but imagine the joy of cooking with a Meyer lemon you grew yourself. And you can feel a little bit like Louis XIV, who ordered up the orangerie at Versailles […]
The sumac leaves have turned scarlet and the end of the season is finally near. It’s time to clear away this summer’s garden and get tender plants into the house or the greenhouse before the first frost hits. Hygiene is important outdoors as well as indoors. Many insects, disease-causing bacteria and fungal spores can overwinter […]
THE FUTURE IS GREEN in Pittsburgh’s famous glasshouse I saw one of the world’s great greenhouses last month when I visited Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh. One of the largest conservatories in the world, with soaring, lacelike Edwardian architecture framing the glass overhead, it has 17 separate indoor garden spaces – pools, gorgeous […]
As the summer winds down and the garden outside the greenhouse is wan and fading, up pop the dahlias. With jaunty bright flowers on tall stalks, they scoff at the coming of fall like flamboyant Auntie Mame defying middle age. There are dahlias of many colors, mostly in pinks, reds, oranges and yellows, with […]
Inside a greenhouse, it’s fairly easy to control the water your plants get. Out under the open sky, it’s harder. Normally, by July, I would be starting to tire of the watering routine; the hoses seem to get heavier with every summer day that passes. This year, since the Chicago area got almost 8 inches […]
In his New York rooftop greenhouse, Rex Stout’s fictional armchair detective Nero Wolfe had three rooms for a wide variety of orchids. No insect entered that greenhouse. But although Wolfe was an obsessive hybridizer, it was bees, wasps and flies, far more than orchid fanciers, who had created his collection’s extravagant range of shapes and […]
Walking into any well-stocked GLASSHOUSE feels like stepping into a world of green. Quickly, your eye will pick out the exceptions to that green — pink orchids, red begonias. But the green background is what provides the overall sense of life in the greenhouse and makes the colors stand out. The same applies in a […]
A greenhouse can be an ideal place to force daffodils into bloom in early spring. If the bulbs have been potted in fall and kept in a place that is cold but not freezing, they will have gotten the 12 to 14 weeks of chilling they need. Now they can be brought into the warmth […]
