The winter garden is a kind of intermediate area between the living space and the surrounding nature. The design of the winter garden allows you to protect plants from low temperatures by creating a greenhouse effect, and also to fill the lack of nature in urban conditions.
How to create a winter garden with your own hands?
The first thing you need to do is determine the appropriate territory. The best option is a glazed extension to the house with a stable frame structure. At the certain desire it is possible to arrange a winter garden and in apartment of an apartment house, on a balcony. Previously, it will be necessary to insulate the balcony and take care of the reliability of the window structures to avoid drafts. It must be taken into account that the building must withstand the effects of cold wind, rain, and snow.
The main issues to be faced when creating a winter garden project:
- Heating. When creating a project, it is necessary to take into account all the features of the premises and supporting structures. Heating can be electric, water or steam. Water heating is usually installed around the perimeter walls, and electricity is used to heat floors.
- Ventilation. In a closed room due to high humidity, which is unavoidable when watering so many plants, condensation forms. The ventilation system will avoid condensation. One way: to think through the system of holes and windows, so as to avoid drafts in the room. The second option is to artificially control the climate in the room, that is, use a split-system.
- Lighting. Conventional incandescent lamps can not provide the desired intensity of radiation and spectral composition. In addition, incandescent lamps can cause burns in sensitive plants. The best option is fluorescent lighting. These lamps have low heat output and a powerful light flux, besides, their energy-saving characteristics are much higher than those of an incandescent lamp.
The design of the winter garden largely depends on the room. The balcony converted into a winter garden is unlikely to allow setting tables, making a path out of stones, etc. But the annex to the house gives more opportunities to create the interior of the winter garden to your liking. Of course, the appearance will depend on what plants are planned to grow: low, tall or strewn. Plants dictate the size of the pot, the width of the pallet and the shelves.
Plants for the winter garden
Plants for a winter garden can be divided into three groups:
- Tropical: monsters, begonia, anthurium, orchid, palm trees.
- Subtropical plants: myrtle, feijoa, citrus, and laurel.
- Plants of desert regions: aloe, agave, cacti, etc.
Plants of each group need special care, each group has its own requirements for the level of humidity, light and temperature of the air. Therefore, it is rather difficult to plant plants from three groups in one winter garden. In the event that the winter garden is located on the balcony of a residential apartment, you should completely abandon the idea of combining plants with different requirements for care.
Plants of the first group need abundant watering, high humidity (more than 80%) and a temperature of at least 18 ° C. Subtropical plants have a sufficient humidity of 70%, in winter the optimum temperature for them is not more than 12 ° C. Finally,
Choosing plants for the winter garden, you need to consider not only their needs for care, but also the features of their growth and development. For example, those plants that will require frequent transplantation should be placed in such a way that they do not disturb pots with plants that do not need a frequent transplant. To small pots with miniature plants it will be difficult to make their way through the rows of large palms.
Whichever plants you choose, designing a winter garden is an exciting activity that will bring great pleasure to all family members.