The Variegated Thumb

Recent growth in my plant collection has highlighted the inevitable - I’m going to need a greenhouse sometime in the future.  And that future seems to be quickly approaching.  For quite a while I have thought that a greenhouse might be possible sometime in the future, but we recently decided to go ahead and do it now.

Plants are almost literally growing out of our ears!  We need someplace to put them.  While my wife and I love our little house, it is lacking in the number of windows needed for happy houseplants.  During the winter months, our house stays at 60F most of the day and we only turn it up to 62-63F when we are going to be at home for a while and get cold.  The plants would prefer 80F and 80% humidity.

A greenhouse can provide that kind of growing environment on winter days, by simply taking advantage of the sun’s awesome power.  I intend to take advantage.  On winter nights, a heater is required.

In the next month, we’re going to build a small greenhouse on our back porch.  The area we have to work with is about 8′x12′, so the inner dimensions will likely be about 7′x11′.  This area is pretty heavily shaded during the growing season by our huge Sycamore tree.  When Fall arrives and the temperatures drops, so do the leaves.  At this critical time of the year my greenhouse will receive the most light.

One wall of the greenhouse will be shared with the exterior of our house.  The roof of the greenhouse will adjoin our house roof.

My back patio where the greenhouse is to be built

Construction

I plan to lay 2-3 layers of cinder blocks and then build a simple wooden frame out of 2″x4″s on top of that.  I have experience laying cinder block from house-building mission trips to Mexico.  My father-in-law has built several houses and will be helping with the framing.  The walls and ceiling will be covered with 8mm triple-wall polycarbonate sheets. Twin-walls are a little cheaper and more common, but the cost differential is quickly paid for with reduced heating costs and size of heater needed.

Initial sketch of my greenhouse plans

The polycarbonate sheets can be attached very easily by nailing/screwing them into the wood frame.  Additionally, you have to seal all joints to avoid leaking the warm, humid air of the greenhouse.

To cover the screws or nails, you cover the polycarbonate joints with trim wood.  I plan on cutting my trim pieces to fit and then staining and sealing my trim pieces before attaching them to the greenhouse.

Heating

I will buy a small space heater that will run in the greenhouse during the winter months over night.  During the day, it should stay pretty warm, even when the temperatures outside are cold.  I have used a calculator online to determine the BTU output my heater will need.  Assuming the temperature falls to about 20 F outside and I want my greenhouse to stay at or above 60 F, I will need about 500 BTUs to heat the greenhouse.

Cost

I ran some rough numbers and have an estimated cost of the main materials.  Those materials are the lumber, cinder blocks and polycarbonate sheets.  They are the most costly and also the easiest to figure.  For instance, I know almost exactly how many cinder blocks I’ll need, but have no idea how many nails.

My initial estimate doesn’t include all of the fasteners (nails, bolts, etc.), sealers, stain, or bags of mortar and cement.  Other considerations are any extra tools for building (beyond what I already own), the exhaust fan, and a simple fluorescent light fixture.  I plan to find some cheap shelves and build the remaining ones to fill the space inside.

All in all, I figure the total cost won’t be much more than 50% greater than my initial estimate for the base materials.

Room for improvement

Over the years the greenhouse will probably undergo a number of changes.  I’ve already thought a couple of them through.  We would like to add a room onto our house one day.  At that time, we will be ordering bricks to match our house.  I would like to have a professional mason cover over the cinder blocks with the matching red brick, so I will be leaving room on the back porch pad when I lay the cinder blocks.

Another upgrade I foresee is incorporating irrigation in some way.  I’m not sure how I want to do this and I think I will probably have a better idea after the greenhouse is built.  For now I’m going to just drag the hose in through the door or use a watering can.  One potential watering system would simply be to collect rainwater runoff from the roof and route it into a container in the greenhouse.  There are a couple of areas around the house that would benefit from gutters diverting heavy rains to other locations.

Other potential upgrades include improved circulation, ventilation or heating.

There is a good discussion of hobby greenhouses at Thyme for Herbs.

Stay tuned for more posts soon with pictures of the greenhouse in progress and complete with occupants!

See other phases of the project here:

• Initial Plans
• Phase 1: Masonry
• Phase 2: Staining
• Phase 3: Anchoring
• Phase 4: Framing
• Phase 5: Polycarbonate
• First heater night
• Phase 6: Move-in Day

Last week I wrote about adding some plants to our corner garden.  Over the last couple of weeks we have carefully selected some plants and added them in.  Our main criteria are:

• Colorful,
• Not weedy-looking,
• Season-long interest,
• Emphasis on Perennials or self-seeding Annuals.

The corner garden in it's current state. It looks much fuller than it will in just a couple of weeks, when the Daffodil and Tulip stems die back. Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum) in the foreground.

We did purchase some annuals that do not self-seed, but for the most part we chose plants that adhered to these criteria.

African Daisy - Osteospermum hybrid 'Orange Symphony' before planting in corner garden.

African Daisies were the annuals of choice for this year.  First we spotted the ‘Orange Symphony’ variety with its purple centers.  We bought four of these plants, but two of them quickly died, before we were able to put them in the ground.  Thankfully, Home Depot has a 1 year warranty on all of their plants.  We took back the two dead plants and replaced them with two of the purple variety ‘Soprano Light Purple.’  These bright, annual flowers are grown by Proven Winners, that has produced creamy yellow, white, purple and orange flowers, all with purple centers.  You can see the color varieties grown by Proven Winners here.

African Daisy - Osteospermum 'Soprano Light Purple' planted in the corner garden. The green clover shaped leaves in the top left corner and the purple clover shaped leaves in the top center are both Oxalis. Tulip, Daffodil, Daylily and Violet foliage are also in this picture.

A couple of days after planting the purple African Daisies (Osteospermums), we found some more plants to add to our corner garden, including a wonderful little silvery shrub from the genus Elaeagnus (possibly Elaeagnus pungens).  I planted the Elaeagnus in the corner and moved the Oxalis to the foreground of the bush to provide good contrast with the silver foliage.  The purple Oxalis has actually started blooming since I moved them.  Their blooms are light pink, but look white in the picture below, due to some extra reflection.  Notice that the purple African Daisies are also much lighter looking in this picture.

Silver shrub is an Elaeagnus (pungens?). The white blooms in front of the Elaeagnus are from the purple Oxalis lying in front of it.

I really like the silvery leaves of this little shrub.  It turns out that it is from the same genus as the Russian Olive Trees that I admired last May in Boulder, Colorado.  I wrote a little bit about them on my Desert Island Challenge post.  This shrub will provide great contrast to the purple foliage of the Oxalis planted in front of it and the cranberry red Barberry bush planted on the opposite side of the corner garden.

Rose glow Barberry bush (Berberis thunbergii v. atropurpurea), planted 2 years ago

The Barberry bush is not new.  We planted it two years ago and it is one of my favorite outdoor plantings.  The foliage is just stunning, with such a vivid color.  It immediately draws your attention when you look at the garden, even with other plants in bloom.  I highly recommend this bush.

Another new addition - Euphorbia longifolia 'Excalibur'

I have just recently become aware of a group of Euphorbias that can be planted as perennial shrubs in temperate climates.  Most people know of a couple of species of Euphorbias - The Poinsettia (E. pulcherrima) and The Crown of Thorns (E. milii) - but would be surprised to find that this plant is from the same genus.  I am preparing a much more long-winded post on Euphorbias that I will probably have ready in the next 2 weeks.  The tag of this Euphorbia says “Abundant flower heads emerge red and turn a brilliant yellow, highlighting the mounded blue-green foliage.  A superb accent plant for the mixed border or rock garden.”  So far we’re just enjoying the blue-green foliage, which is a nice addition to our garden.

Pink creeping Phlox (Phlox subulata) in the foreground with contrasting foliage colors in background.

We planted several pots of creeping Phlox in our corner garden a couple of years ago, but for some reason they had trouble getting established.  It was probably due to a hot dry spell when we didn’t stay on top of watering.  Only one of our Phlox survived from year’s past - a pink one.  My wife’s favorite Phlox are the blueish purple color.  So this year we bought three really healthy purple Phlox plants and mixed them into our corner garden.  We will stay on top of watering these, and hopefully have more Phlox every year.

Newly planted Purple creeping Phlox (P. subulata) with Oxalis in bloom (small pink blooms) and small Rudbeckia plants.

Over a month ago I raved about some Rudbeckias called R. hirta ‘Moreno.’  Well, I ordered three of these plants.  They aren’t much to look at right now (see the little rosette just to the right of the Phlox above?), but hopefully they will mature nicely this year and then bloom next year.  If I take extra special care with them for two seasons, I hope that they will start to self-seed and I will have many more in the future.  I also ordered some seeds of the ‘Cherry Brand’ Rudbeckias, which are solid red.  I am going to start these seeds in the next week.

White Cyclamen planted in more open space on the right side of the garden.

Cyclamen are one of my favorite plants.  I couldn’t resist getting a couple of these plants to add to the corner garden.  With amazing silver foliage and really unique blooms that look upside down, this just seems like the perfect plant.  Notice the difference in variegation of the leaves on the two plants I purchased.

White Cyclamen planted in front of green Oxalis.

I just realized there are Oxalis in 8 of the 11 pictures in this post!  We were given two varieties of Oxalis by a coworker of my wife a couple of years ago.  One is a green leaf variety with bright pink blooms.  The other is a purple leaf variety with a light pink bloom.  They have multiplied each year and are doing really well in our garden.  We will probably have to thin them out soon, assuming they continue to multiply at the same rate.

Another new perennial that we planted is a Mexican Petunia (Ruellia brittoniana).  This plant has long, strappy leaves that are deep green and produces pink-purple blooms that resemble a Petunia.  We planted this plant on the nearly-empty top tier of the corner garden.

Mexican Petunia (Ruellia brittoniana 'Katie's Pink') planted on top tier of corner garden. Green Oxalis in the foreground.

I also transplanted some of our Irises to the top tier.  I’m not sure why we have neglected to plant more back there, but now it is getting hard to get back there to do any planting, since our flowerbed is filling out.

What do you think of the new additions?

I started daydreaming a couple of weeks ago about some things we could do to further spruce up our backyard and make it more inviting.  As it is, my wife spends almost every lunch break lounging on our hammock in the backyard, enjoying the breeze, the sun, the birds, the squirrels and the plant life.

You can see pictures of our corner garden on this post.

I came up with some ambitious plans for the future of our backyard.  There are several improvements we are planning on making in the short term (over the next 5 years), but this vision for our backyard is more along the 10 year time frame.  It might happen sooner, but it will most likely be a slow progression.

A sketch of my plans for a "paradise corner"

My sketch is a simplistic view of what I want the corner to look like.  The elements in the sketch would provide a nice place to sit and relax, but the elements that are missing from the sketch are those that will truly make it a paradise.  There will be lots of plant life surrounding all of these features.

To see what the corner garden looks like now, with the new fence erected, check out the fourth picture in this post.

The Pond

I have the sketch labeled “small pond,” but that’s not very descriptive.  I think it will be about 8-10 feet in length and about 4 feet in width at the narrowest and about 6 feet at the wider bulge.  I will probably create the usual shelf so that the center of the pond is about 2-3 feet deep, while the outer ring is only about 1-1.5 feet deep.  There will probably be some aquatic plants, including: Cannas, black-stemmed Alocasia, Lotus (water lilies) and grasses.  I’m not sure yet whether we will have any fish, but I imagine we probably will.

In the middle of the pond will be a small fountain to keep the water circulating (cutting down on mosquitos) and to generate some nice splashing water sounds.

After I told my wife about my plan, she had something to add to my vision.  She suggested that we have a small bridge that steps over the pond, linking the gazebo to the corner garden.  We’ll have to keep our eyes peeled for a small, sloped bridge (without railings).  I think it would look a little silly with railings, due to the scale of the pond.

The Half-Gazebo

I don’t think I have ever seen a half-gazebo before, so I’m not sure where I got the idea.  I was just thinking how neat it would be to have a small gazebo in that part of our yard with our hammock inside of it.  Since the gazebo will be against the fence, it makes sense for it to be cut in half.  Also, we won’t want it to cut very far into the yard.

The gazebo will be a wonderful place for us to sit and relax, looking at the flowers in our corner garden, listening to the gurgling water of our pond fountain and watching the birds and squirrels.  We will probably want to run electricity to the gazebo and put in an outlet so that we can plug in radios, or other things like that.  Also, we will need electricity for the pond fountain.

I would like to plant around the gazebo so that the structure blends into the environment.  I plan on planting a Passion Flower along the front side that will climb up the railings and posts of the gazebo.

The Corner Garden

I wrote a post earlier this week about expanding our “corner garden” along the right side.  This will help our paradise corner from being too heavy along the left fence line.

Bird's eye view of the planned "paradise corner"

Rock Walk

The ground area joining the corner garden to the pond to the gazebo will be covered in flat stones.  Since the area is narrow, well-shaded and will probably be perpetually moist, it will be easier to maintain and more ascetically pleasing if this area is rock, rather than grass.  I will try to get some moss growing between and on top of the stones.  Hopefully we can find some rock locally that matches the rock used in the pond.

The Flowering Fence Line

Currently there are small flowering bushes planted all along the fence line where I am planning to build the half-gazebo.  In the first sketch in this post, I condensed the width of fence line that lies between the corner garden and the large quince bush.  There are about 5 or 6 small quince bushes along this fence that are offsets from the large quince.  Also there is an almond bush and a spirea.  If we decide to build the gazebo flush with the fence, we will relocate the flowering bushes to wrap around the gazebo.  Otherwise, we can build the gazebo about 4 feet into our yard and leave the bushes in place.  It all depends on how much yard we are willing to sacrifice.

Beginning

Our beloved “corner garden” was installed during the Summer of 2006.  One corner of our yard was particularly shady, so there wasn’t any grass growing there.  Additionally, there is an unsightly utilities pole in that corner.  We decided to create a corner garden by erecting a wood fence inside of the corner of our yard and building a tiered garden in front of the fence.  We were lucky enough to have some neighbors doing some landscaping which left over a huge pile of dirt.  They were happy for us to haul it off and we were happy to have some free dirt.  We weren’t as happy about the 50+ trips we made with the wheelbarrow to haul the dirt, though. :)  We also came across some free rocks from a relative who wanted them out of her garden.  Those we loaded in a truck.

Future site of the corner garden. Rocks were just being laid out to form the shape and dirt filled in.

We used the rocks to create 3 tiers and hold the dirt in place.  We were very happy with the outcome of our garden.

The corner garden once it was first complete (summer 2006). None of the plants pictured are still in the corner garden. If you look closely you will notice that the entire flowerbed is shaded.

We vigorously planted the corner garden the first year and it looked very nice for the first two years.  The Hostas got larger and several of the Heuchera (Coral Bells) came back.  The garden was starting to mature.

Change

However, during December of 2007 central Oklahoma had a really bad ice storm, resulting in the loss of a lot of beautiful trees.  Several of the scraggly trees from our neighbor’s yard lost limbs that were responsible for shading the corner garden.  As a result, last summer most of the shade plants that we had established began to die under the intense full sun.  Several plants were removed and relocated before it was too late.  But the plants left a void.

The current state of the corner garden. It looks pretty good, but most everything green only lasts for a couple of months during the early Spring. Soon it will all die back, leaving very little to look at during the Summer.

Right now the garden looks nice because it is filled with the colors of Spring bulbs.  But soon those will turn brown and die back until next Spring.  And there will be very little green left in our garden for the remainder of the Summer.

It’s really sad, because the corner garden is a foundation of our backyard and one of our inspirations for continual improvement.  This year it needs some attention.

Revival

We are going to invest some of our gardening budget this year on reviving the corner garden with colorful perennials that are meant for a full-sun garden.  The goal is to have the corner garden looking great all year long.  At its current state, the corner garden only looks up to par during the Spring.

I have already ordered some Rudbeckias, which will provide color during the Summer.  We planted some creeping Phlox a couple of years ago, but it hasn’t rebloomed until this year.  We’re excited about that coming back.

I have also been thumbing through the plant catalogs and decided that the late Summer and Fall color will be attained by a collection of Asters.  Bluestone Perennials has an “Aster Collection,” which includes 5 plants of different colors.  I can’t remember the exact names of the plants, but there was a purple, a blue, a red and a white.  The value of the collection is that you get several different colors for a reduced price.  Lots of color and reduced cost sounds good to me!

Bluestone Perennials also has a bush to add vivid Fall color - Euonymus alatus compactus.  This shrub is commonly called “Burning Bush” because of it’s bright red foliage in the Fall.  It also produces small red berries that remain after the leaves have fallen at the end of the Fall.

Dwarf Burning Bush (Euonymus alatus compactus), available from Bluestone Perennials.

And finally, we will need some evergreen plants mixed into our corner garden.  Sometimes I don’t really consider green to be a color when it comes to plants, but compared to brown, dormant plants - green will do nicely.

I haven’t figured out what type of evergreen plants to put in our garden.  I really like the junipers that we have planted around our garden waterfall.  Maybe I’ll plant something like that, but I don’t think the same type would fit with the feel of the corner garden.  I’ve got some time to think about that, though.

Expansion

While the year-round color is a goal we expect to cover this year, we have another short-term goal that will probably be done in the next two years.  Last Spring we transplanted a Redbud tree along the fence line, about 10 feet away from our corner garden.  We have been talking about expanding the corner garden along the back fence line (to the right with respect to the corner) to enclose the Redbud tree.

Here’s a little sketch of the existing corner garden and original fence backing (in bold) and the planned extension (fainter line).

Sketch of my plan for expanding the corner garden

The existing corner garden has 3 tiers, but the extension will only be for the lowest tier level.  It will allow us to plant some more things, including some larger items, like the small “Burning Bush” shrub shown above.

What do you think of our planned expansion?