Thanks everyone. :)

Betsybr- I'll try to email you a couple pictures.

I just came across this Thread; and thought i would post. Just BEAUTIFUL!! aND very neat and tidy! Iam going to put out vibes to the universe, so i can have what you have.....ommmmmmmmmmmm.........
I was wondering do you have any winter pics'?Thank you for posting the pictures!
Also.... the coldframes were great! Blessings for you and your family in 2008! Happy New year!

Some winter pics of the GH and garden....

The bird feeding "station" has cabin, tower and suet feeders in the winter with mixed, sunflower and niger seed.

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My Savanah Girl statue was bought in Florida, so the cement used to make her is not winter safe. She is laid down for the winter to make sure she does not crack from water freezing in her bowls.

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The large white martin house is an antique-over 60 years old and restored after being rescued from a local farm.

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The main arbour was built from salvaged hydro poles. The smaller arbours are built from old cedar rail fencing.

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Someday all the windows in my old schoolhouse home will be restored to full size again.

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Wyndyacre, your place is SO inspiring! I'm drooling on my keyboard here! I haven't been on this forum for ages and while visiting last evening I was so impressed with your place I sent you a PM asking for info on heating your GH. I see now that you are in the same zone as I am so we probably would have similar heating needs. Do you keep your GH heated all winter or do you just start heating it in March when you bring in the divisions? Also, what kind of potting mix do you use? Thanks in advance.
Mary

That arbor is similar to mine only wider. Lucky you...larger shrubs and trees to break up the monotony. Hopefully I'll have a little more visual interest as I get things growing.

sigh

THANKYOU for the winter photos. I love your garden.
I find myself coming back to your pictures. I really LOVE your garden!!!!!!!!!! Iam still sending those vibes out to the universe................OOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmMMMMMmmmmmmmmMMMMM.

"My Savanah Girl statue was bought in Florida, so the cement used to make her is not winter safe. She is laid down for the winter to make sure she does not crack from water freezing in her bowls. "

Very nice, very nice in deed! Great balance of nature/sculptures.

I was told that you can put a small block of foam in the bowl to take up water's expansion and thus prevent cracking the bowl.

dcarch

"

Thanks everyone for your comments!
I know this thread is getting photo heavy and could take a long time to load for those on dialup. I sympathize....especially since I'm on dialup myself!

Marisha-I've answered your email but I forgot to say I use ProMix (a commercial non-soil blend of peat, perlite, vermiculite, plus a small shot of fertilizer) for my seed starting and sticking cuttings. I buy the largest bag of it, it comes compressed in plastic "bales". It cost about $25 a bale here but could possibly be cheaper in the States.
That would be pretty expensive for potting for the plant sale though, so when potting I use compost obtained from the municipality and mix it with ProMix. Around a 4 to 1 ratio. The compost by itself is too dense and heavy. The ProMix lightens it up nicely. The plants are only in that mixture for a few months at the most,until they are sold and planted by someone.

Ohgirl-thanks for asking about winter photos. It's taken quite a few years of planning and planting for things to finally start having winter interest as well as summer flowers. I've been here 12 years and had to plant everything but the 70 year old spruces that ring the property. It was literally a blank slate.

Zengeos-I'm so glad I had those old spruce trees to start off with. I'm surrounded by empty farm fields in the winter. Talk about monotony! I've planted well over 300 shrubs and ornamental trees over the last 12 years. Some are finally getting to be a nice size.
Some fast growing ones are silver leaf dogwood, purple leaf sandcherry, viburnams, burning bush, spireas. Now I'm concentrating on things like magnolias, redbuds, japanese maples, hydrangeas, rhodos etc. I'm changing my garden into a woodland! :)

Dcarch-thanks for the tip on the foam. I've heard the same thing about placing a chunk of wood also. The bowls Savannah Girl are holding are quite shallow and I value her quite dearly so I prefer not to take a chance with her cracking. I thought about bringing her into the shed for the winter but she is also quite heavy, so I just lay her down. A friend owns a cement lawn ornament company and she advised me to do this rather than try and cover her with plastic, which would collect condensate on sunny days and then freeze at night.

re: Savannah Girl

You can also get a very small carbide drill bit to drill a small hole in the bowl to drain out water in the winter, and plug the hole when you need to fill the bowl with water.

dcarch

Wyndy...I am slowly planting trees and shrubs...to moderate success. 5 or 6 Col Blue Spruce, 2 Weeping Spruce, 2 Weeping White Pines, a half dozen lilacs, a half dozen decid azaleas....and a few others I forget.

Of course, the 8 upright willows in front...30' tall in 5 years not bad! helps give privacy in the summer (going to use branches from these in making some fedge structures this year, I think...

I also have a half dozen River Birch I planted as whips... several are almost 15 feet high and have quite pretty bark year round.
.

Still, compared to your plot mine looks barren!!! especially in Winter.

In a couple or 3 years, I hope this changes dramatically as the new beds mature.

My game plan is to continually expand my flower AND vbeggie beds. I've doubled both in size this year (actually tripled flower beds) and plan to double the flower gardens again next year. The beautiful thing is I am reaching a momentum where I have the basic fill plants...day lilies, hostas, and other hardy, easy to grow plants and just need to broaden my species.

Zengeos, the great thing about having the GH and coldframes and learning how to propagate, is that it is like owning your own nursery. With this extensive of a garden, I always have plants and shrubs that I can divide or "assist" in air layering then pot up, grow on in the GH or coldframe and stockpile for when I want to create a new bed or fill in a spot. Once you've bought a really nice variety of shrub, you can make as many as you like! Potted up right now, waiting for spring to plant are Cream Cracker Dogwood, Golden Ninebark, White Variegated Elder, Purple Smokebush and Doublefile Viburnam.
I've got a couple River Birch also-love them for the bark and the catkins that still cling to them in the winter. Would like to try to propagate them and plant a whole grove.
In a couple weeks, I'm going to stick cuttings of boxwood to make a low hedge around my raised bed veg garden. And I have a lot of redbud tree seeds I'm going to sow. I have 9 redbud trees already and love them-I want more!

You won't believe how fast your garden will mature in a few years. It's always surprising to look at photos that are a couple years old. Trees and shrubs seemingly grow without you ever noticing until you see an old photo.

Some well placed structures or art is important to giving the garden some winter interest as well. My garden is 1 acre in size and seemed very empty in the winter until I started building arbours, the GH and placing statues, bird houses and feeders, large pots and items of sculptural interest like a few farm wheels and implements. I didn't want things to look too cluttered-I'm aiming for a more formal, woodland look eventually. I admire the English estate gardens with mature trees and plantings and well placed art.

My garden structure of note is the 8x12 grape arbor. Had great grape production but haven't trained them...and REALLY need to do that this year.

Pic here:

http://photos.ivillage.com/images/photos/resize/gardenweb_Garden%20Galleries_1199193743654_278944D.jpg

This pic was taken in June. Since then I've torn the path apart and spread the existing plants out, while turning the whole thing into a fall bulb garden. Never done much with bulbs before, so not sure what I'll get come Spring, but it's a solid start. Put in a 2'tall flat fieldstone wall, as well as a timber wall 3' high by about 15' wide on the side of the house.

My thinking is, money and time and energy permitting I want to build a trellis out of copper pipe, as well as a simple freestanding trellis to go somewhere not yet decided upon yet.

Much of my time has been on the foundation *bones* the fieldstone walk, the 8x10 freestanding deck on the side, the retaining walls, and such. So much I want to do, so little time....

Wow, your arbour does look like mine! Mine is wider but it is also about 10 feet tall too. It is built of old electric poles.

I like your iris's. And I love the amount of woodland you have in the background! Is that your property also? I would be making paths thru there, adding understory ornamental trees like redbuds, dogwoods, service berries, rhodos and making hosta beds with other woodland plants. :)

Here's a link to your garden photo Zengeos. Garden web doesn't automatically turn urls into clickable links.

Since nobody else has come forward, I think I'll be the first. Can I have your greenhous? It's beautiful. Please, oh please...

DG

Wyndy,
I'm wondering if you have any pictures of the steps you took to build the cold frame? I have a few sliding glass doors that I am not going to use (was planning to do a whole GH from them...but bought the HFGH instead....Do you think I could make them work for a CF?

thanks for any tips!!

Rjinga-We didn't build the coldframe ourselves....we got it for free! (Please don't hate me, LOL) When I was taking the Hort Course at the college, it was rotting away behind the GH. The first year, I asked if I could buy it but they wanted to keep it for a while. The second year, they offered it to me for free. I got a trailer and took it away that afternoon before they could change their mind!
I had to repair some hinges, replace missing screws that held the polycarbonate on, put some handles on the lids and stain it. And it had over 15 yellow jacket wasp nests in it!

I have to say I don't think the sliding glass doors would make very good cold frame lids. They a VERY heavy and would be difficult to lift. I also know from experience that the wind loves to grab stuff like that and fling it around. (Even the polycarbonate lids have been grabbed and ripped off before we devised a system that both props them open and holds them down, with broom sticks and bungee cords) I would hate to see the same thing happen to glass lids!

You could, perhaps, use them as the back wall of the cold frame and try to find something else to use as the lids. Even a wood frame with plastic sheeting stapled to it.

I LOVE your greenhouse! Either you or your hubby or both had really good ideas. I wish I were so creative. I wouldn't even know how to go about finding materials like that what you used to make your greenhouse. Wow, you sure had lots of customers! I think that's great and a super way to make some extra $ doing something that you enjoy. Do you live near a city? I never saw that many customers at the nurseries that are in our area but it's rural.
Where do you get your containers and potting soil? Best of luck to you with your greenhouse and sales.

Love the winter photos. Keep them coming. I don't have dial up anymore but if I did, I'd gladly wait to see more of your amazing garden and structures.

I had to wait :-(

Wyndy,
I agree that the sliding glass doors would be too heavy for a lid...I had considered using them on the front and back sides. and then using something else on the rt and left sides and top. Well I can get a pretty good idea from the picture you posted of how to probably put it together. So I'll just have to get creative. (not my real email address BTW...when did this new requirement begin?)

Wow, what a beautiful place you have created. You are not only a gardener and restorer, but an artist.

Connie

I am so glad I saw your post! Your gardens and structures are amazingly beautiful and inspiring!

I'm glad someone brought this thread back to life :) Wyndy has been my inspiration since I first decided to get a GH (My first plan was the sliding glass door route)...Since then of course I got the 10 X 12 HFGH, which has been fun to say the least, it's a work in progess for me. I grew so many veggies and herbs, I just had a ball and filled that GH up with stuff I was trying to grow. I also had very good success with it all so much so that I've been selling them to people to via ads on craigslist etc. I've more than paid for all my seeds, soil, perlite etc. NOTHING like wyndy's plant sale, but again, something to aspire to.

Love your whole setup

Lovely pictures of your greenhouse and yard. I'm trying to figure out how to post some of my pics. Once i do that will send some as well. mojomick

Wyndy - You are living the life that I was meant to live...and am working on. What a great set up you have.

Maureen

Wyndy,
You are so awesome. I do not think that you come back to this thread often but it is amazing that it is still looked at this often.

How did your plant sale go this year? And where oh where do you store all those plants after they come out of your coldframe?

I would love to do something like this! Where do you advertise for your sale?

Wow! This thread lives on....:)

Thanks for your continued comments. We've been busy this summer doing a little maintenance to the GH and the latest project which is making formal raised beds where the veggie garden once was in front of the GH.

Christieb-After 7 years of having the plant sale, I decided not to have one this year. I actually spent the whole winter and spring preparing for it, with tons of plant material, then a couple weeks before I would have started advertising I got a wonderful, full time, year round job!
The job is as a gas fitter for a natural gas distribution company and involves spending every other week in another city undergoing training all summer. So I decided I didn't have time and in fact, financially, I no longer needed to sell plants to make ends meet.
I still ended up selling almost everything on my little cart at the end of the driveway and had great fun giving away perennials to all my friends, relatives, coworkers, strangers on the street etc etc. LOL! I was like the Perennial Santa Claus. :)

Here's my little cart...
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And here's my new raised beds just after we built them in May. There is a patio stone sidewalk to them and between them and there will be one between the GH and raised beds this fall too.
This area has always been deep with snowdrifts in the winter and collects water in the spring so it will be nice to have a solid walkway to shovel and walk on in the wet seasons.
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Oh...and I stored the thousands of perennials, as they came out of the coldframe, on a woodchipped area in the corner of the yard near the GH. It would get preeeety crowded there before the sale. :)
And I advertised by posting flyers in all the small towns around my rural location, in the city 25 miles away and in 2 local newspapers. Also, after a few years I had tons of repeat customers that would tell their friends...word of mouth was a big bonus. I also started an email list and notified those on it about a month before the sale.

Glad you got a full time job that pays well. But don't forget to keep us all posted on what you are doing in your wounderful gardens. Love all your beautiful photos.
Carol

This is amazing!!!
how long did it take you to build?

Thank you for this wonderful thread. I am so inspired :)
Cindy~CO

We require the information of Green House Gerbera Flower in India

I have been saving windows, brick and lumber for years to build a greenhouse. I now have about 2 acres landscaped, planted and mulched and I am tired of starting my garden seedlings inside and moving them in and out when cold or storms arrive in the spring. I had the type of GH I wanted in my head but had a mental block to get it on paper. I have spent days on-line looking at plans and concepts. Today I stumbled on your pictures and they are the ideal starting point to design from. I joined "Village Garden" today just to say thank you for the inspiration. God Bless.

I just found this page a few of weeks ago and am in awe! Our neighbor had windows out for the trash and I grabbed them for a cold frame, but then I found this and now I've collected quite a few more square feet of windows (thank you, freecycle!)
Any tips on designing the greenhouse?

design it around the windows you have or will have. That way you know they will fit.

Awe Inspiring! My dear husband is in the process of building me a greenhouse. I can not wait to "move in" and start playing in the dirt!!

I'm not sure if you are still answering on this comment string. What did you use for the foundation? Did you anchor it down in any way? I am hoping to do a greenhouse this summer and I'm researching what is the best way to build it. I live in Michigan and my building will probably be around 10x12. Any thoughts or links to photos would be appreciated! : )

I've just started coming back to GardenWeb after a few years absence and am amazed and gratified to see people still responding to this 9year old post of my greenhouse!

It was built on cement piers in the ground, poured into SonoTubes, which then had a sillplate bolted to it. The piers go down below frost line.

The greenhouse was built in 2002 of mostly 100 year old windows, some of which were beginning to rot. So, a couple of years ago, we did a renovation. The south front wall and roof were removed and replaced with two skylights and shingles for the roof and a new wall of modern vinyl windows for the wall. The skylights and windows were bought as salvage items. Here's a photo of the framework as we renovated.

Hi Wyndyacres! I too have been away a long time..I do recall that YOUR greenhouse construction was one of the one's that inspired and motivated me. My HF greenhouse still stands, but sadly hasn't been used for the past 3-4 years. my construction was way less impressive and the treated wood that we used has all but dissintegrated (sp) and I lost one panel in a big wind storm. But everywhere else it's sturdy..

Hi rjinga! Good to see you are still around too. I don't use my greenhouse in quite the same way as i used to when I had all those yearly plant sales. Hard to beleive it has been eight years since I started working as a gasfitter and stopped doing the plant sales. I have much more time now though, to just enjoy my own garden. I didn't do anything at all in the greenhouse last year as my Mom was ill and then passed away. I dug up and moved many special plants from her garden, into mine in the fall and am beginning to see them all awaken this spring.

Hi Wyndyacre,

So sorry to hear about your mother. I'm glad you transplanted some of her garden into yours. You'll always treasure those plants. I did the same thing when my mom passed. I still have those Hostas after 35 yrs and moving so many times during those years. I always dug them up and took them with me and I think of her every time I look at them, especially when they bloom.

I'm another member who hasn't been here in a long time. I was so glad to see your greenhouse again, it's always been an inspiration to me. It IS hard to believe it's been eight years since you had those sales. I remember wishing I lived near you at that time!

I have your greenhouse pinned on my Pinterest board. It looks more like a little get-away or studio now since you repaired and updated it. I like the changes and additions you've made. I'm glad to hear you can relax and enjoy your garden more now but I bet those people miss your plant sales!!

Thank you Marisha! So good to see all the the Garden Webbers again!

Yes, there isn't as much glass in the greenhouse anymore. It's more a potting shed now than a true GH. But there is still plenty of light for starting seeds and growing on divisions. I also have a 3 shelf light table in there. I don't anticipate needing the lights, just using it for the shelf space but they are there if I want to use them. I inherited it from my Mom too, who inherited it from my uncle. I have another one in the warmth of my basement that I do use for starting seeds in the very early spring and also use the lights to give my cactii collection and amarylis bulbs some extra light.

I've even put a chair in the greenhouse...gasp! I never had time to sit down in there before. LOL!

It's time to start some veggie seeds now! I didn't do any vegetable gardening last summer while my Mom was ill and the whole raised beds filled in with self seeded lupines and fringe leaf bleeding hearts. Now I have to dig them all out and move them to other parts of the garden....some of them are just huge! A terrible problem to have, I know! :-P

And it is time to start reversing all the winter preparations. Bring the rain barrels back out and redirect the downspouts. Uncover the roses and take down the snow fence and the protective wire fencing I put around shrubs and small trees I didn't want the rabbits to eat. Rake the whole lawn, clean up flower beds and have a lovely burn pile. Plant up some hanging baskets to let grow on and fill in, in the greenhouse, towards the day it will be safe to hang outside!

One last chore...put the cat on her spring diet! :-D

Which part of the world are you located? I've never seen such a fancy greenhouse!

I am in south western Ontario, Canada near the Michigan border.

Congrats on a wonderful build, your place looks enchanting. I just moved into a new place with a long yard [50x290] and i intend to steal many of your ideas. Thanks for sharing.

I have been collecting ideas from as many sites as possible and my greenhouse has slowly evolved. It is probably 80% done at this point. I started in March of this year with a salvage store that was going out of business and I have been painting windows ever since. I was incredibly lucky to find a builder who stops by and prepares work I don't have the skill or strength to do. I have evolved from the rustic to a more formal whimsical style. I cannot wait now for the building completion and the fun decorating and growing to begin.

My best find was a gorgeous floor to ceiling window that the salvage store wanted only $50 for. I am also lucky enough to live near the local habitat for humanity store. And of course, I have become the greatest trash picker out there.

Here is where I am to date.

40 or 50 windows in progress

The most amazing window find

Other funky window finds

my faux dormer

Some "she shed" adaptations.

There were pictures for all of these. maybe they will be posted in time.

I didn't use the GH at all last year, as I was still busy taking care of my Mom's estate and catching up on other things in my life. But this past weekend was dreary and mild...just right for cleaning up and organizing things in the greenhouse, to be ready for spring!

What fun to see the changes you make inside! Still functional and cozy as well. It look great!