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Why Have A Home Greenhouse? |
By:
Sandra Dinkins-Wilson |
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Why Have a Home Greenhouse?
Sandra Dinkins-Wilson
If you are looking to build your own greenhouse then you should know they have a long history going back several hundred years. Back then they would most likely be known as conservatories. They were used to grow the specimens brought back by people (mostly nobles at the time) making their grand European tours or from the new countries being discovered around the world.
These conservatories were used to grow food as well as house exotic specimens from around the world. They allowed the Europeans to have such delicacies as oranges that would be grown in an orangery (or orangerie), so called as that was their specific purpose as a greenhouse. Even as long ago as 30AD, a greenhouse was built to provide cucumbers for the Roman Emperor Tiberius. As glass manufacturing had not been discovered yet, light entered their form of a greenhouse through sheets of mica. Even early American pioneers used thin sheets of mica to allow light into their homes well into the 19th century as glass was still expensive and hard to transport across the country then.
Greenhouses today use glass and certain translucent plastics to make up their walls and roofs. Glass and these plastics allow the whole light spectrum to pass through into your structure. However, they also prevent all of the different types of light waves from passing back through the walls and roofs.
Infrared which we sense as heat is one of the wavelengths that does not escape back out of the home greenhouse through the glass. It is this which we use to heat the air inside our structure giving us the heat we want to grow our plants.
The combined effect of bringing in all that light energy, while only part of it escapes, causes the temperature to tend to be higher inside than out. Anyone sitting in a closed car in the summer sun is familiar with the effect. That's why greenhouses sometimes are called hothouses.
Beyond the heating effect of all that light entering through the glass to heat things up, plants need the sunlight for photosynthesis as well. Photosynthesis is the whole process that plants use to absorb nutrients, move nutrients around, and perform the chemical reactions needed. Think of sunlight as priming the pump of life in plants.
Greenhouses help us control conditions in ways we can't if our plants are placed into an outdoor garden. The effects of wind, temperature, pests, moisture, and other variables are often harder to control outside the greenhouse.
Beyond all these aspects of greenhouses, they can simply be incredibly beautiful additions to our landscaping whether bought as a kit, you have someone build it for you or you build your own greenhouse. Whether a stand alone architectural wonder or a lovely room-expanding addition to the home, a home greenhouse makes for envious gardeners wherever they are found.
Discover tips and articles about http://greenhousesandgardening.com/ greenhouses and http://greenhousesandgardening.com/ gardening at our website http://greenhousesandgardening.com. Find tidbits about hydroponics, greenhouse kits and more for your perusal. You are welcome to reprint this article - but get your own http://www.uberarticles.com/?id=15952&b=79 unique content version here.
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Article Source: http://www.statssheet.com/articles/article61848.html |
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