Try a search with keyword greenhouse, overwinter palms, winter protection, etc. There's been a lot of talk on this in the recent past.

I myself am going to be doing this for a backyard palm in Chicagoland this winter.

Where are you located?

Good luck!

BD.

A couple of things. One, there is a Greenhouse forum on Garden Web and you'll find lots of useful information there. Also, a better forum for this type of question/discussion.

Secondly, you'll need to provide more complete information before such a quesiton can be answered or suggestions be made.

Here are some examples of things that you should offer as info:

- what zone are you in? (this could be made part of your info line (see ptmcclanahan, zone 6) for example.

- what size are you thinking of? i.e., 10x10, etc.

- what will you be storing inside (sensitive plants? cold hardy plants?)

- will you have some large barrels of water inside to buffer the temps?

- will the GH get sun during the day?
As for heating, you have to calculate the size of the inside, the temp you want to maintain inside and the outside lowest temps.

Also, and very important, is what you'll use to insulate the GH. In other words, little or no insulation will be very hard to heat and maintain the heat. It will also cost big $$$ to maintain.

But if you have insulation, that will cut the cost of heating by a huge amount as well as be easier to maintain the heat.

In our case, we have a GH that is approx. 11x11x11. It has double poly with 3 layers of bubblewrap between the layers. We have use an inflator for the last 3 years to bubble it up with an air chamber, but may do away with that this year for other reasons.

We are in zone 6b and the lowest temp I've recorded in our area was something like -18C (0F) (or maybe a bit warmer, can't rembmer right now).

Inside, we heat with one of those ceramic heaters like you can get from Walmart for about $30 (thereabouts). We find those types the most efficient. It's like a 5,000 BTU heater. It's on a thermostat.

Mind you, we do have a 2nd one that has its thermostat set lower than the main one just in case the temps do dip too much and the main heater can't keep things warm.

Inside, there's a fish pond that's about 125 gals and 2 water barrels, each about 45 gals (I think. Could be slightly more). Also, a few 2 quart bottle around the trunks of more sensitve plants. These all act as temperature buffers and they do a good job.

There's also a ceiling fan to keep the air moving around. This helps greatly.

Other than that, that's about all we need to do.

Hope that helps.

Here's some picture of our setup.

Here's the main frame - THESE PICTURES FROM A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO OR SO
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Here's what it looks like with the plastic on it.
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Here's a view from the open end to the inside (before we close it in)

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Here's a pic of the side opened for air during a warmer day
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Blondboy--

A question came to my mind the other day about heating the greenhouse. Have you ever had a prolonged power loss since you began overwintering palms? I'm thinking of buying a "backup" space heater that runs on gas and set it to a much lower temperature that would only kick on in the event the electric is out. While winter blackouts aren't all that common in my area, it nevertheless could happen and the effect would undoubtedly be death of the palm (esp. if at night). Have you taken any precautions before to prevent this from occuring?

Anyone think that this patio heater could provide enough warmth for a small pygmy date palm outdoors in the warmer (25F+) days of winter?

My thought is that this could be a solution for the warmer days when it's just not quite warm enough for the palm to go completely unprotected. This would then allow the palm time to breathe a bit after being "locked up" for a while in the greenhouse. Could get pretty expensive but good for the palm.

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I've got a Juliana 12 x 14 greenhouse heated with natural gas but before I ran natural gas to it, used proprane. The draw back to propane is after several cold nights, I had to fill up the bottles again so I bought a bigger cylinder. But sometimes, I didn't time it perfectly and I ran out of propane in the middle of the night. Before that, I ran a heavy duty extension cord to the greenhouse and used an electric heater. But those things burn a lot of electricity and I was worried about the humidifier and moisture. Natural gas is the best unless you get a huge propane tank.

I also have a patio heater, which also runs off of natural gas. The patio heater will heat up the surrounding area in a 10 foot circumference 10-15 degrees but it will burn your plants to a crisp if you get them too close. Further away than 10 feet and I'm not sure if it will help on 20 degree nights. I used mine for 2 years on a covered patio with lattice around it which I covered in plastic 6mm. I was able to retain heat from the patio heater because the patio was protected from the north winds with the 6mm plastic.

I also still use some portable greenhouses (2)for plants in the ground that need periodic protection in Jan and Feb here in southwest Louisiana. I do add a portable electric heater on the coldest of nights, but this has worked well for me with my in ground heliconia, and very tender gingers.

Steve

Anyone tried infrared heat to warm palms outdoors? I've heard that if done, soil warming cables are also needed.

pt:

To answer your question, yes and know. I don't have an auxilary gas, oil or other fuel heater as a backup. Perhaps I should think of this.

But, we do have an emergency power backup system that could help for some hours at least. As long as I start to start saving some gasoline, we should be OK. In fact, that's on my "prepare for winter" list! LOL :)

But, if a mid-winter power outage were to happen, then I'd probably quickly move our wood burning stove into the GH and quickly connect the pipe. There are sources of wood around here (looks at neighbour's garage!) LOL );)p

I am located in Minnesota. I am thinking that the inside temp should be somewhere around 70 or above. It would receive sun all day. Minnesota temps are cold. Ranging from the negative numbers to 40 dgrs. Greenhouse would be roughly be blondboy's size.

I have been growing in a greenhouse for over18 years. The best way to heat a GH is with gas heat. I use a ventless heater. The only way to go.

orchiddude

blondboy and others--

Any thoughts on this greenhouse? It's for a 2-3ft pygmy date palm so size is good. It was recommended to me by another member of this forum. I'm getting ready to order soon cause the cold is just 2 months away.

Thanks guys!

To small for me

Blondboy--in a previous post you recommended to me that the greenhouse spread at least 2 feet out from the rootball to prevent root freeze. However, with the placement of my palm, I may have some trouble spreading out 2 feet in all directions (see the stone wall in the back and then a dropoff down to the grass). What are your thoughts?

ptmcclanahan.....why not just dig that bad boy up and bring it inside for the winter and then replant it back in the spring? The roots will be fine if you get a good root ball. If you just want to try protecting it while in the ground, thats another lesson. A small greenhouse with a small heater would probably work, with a small fan.

First pt, very pretty palm. I'd sure want to protect that one very well.
I agree with Orchiddude, a bit too small for me too.

Remember, it's not just the palm that needs to be inside, but other things required to make your protection scheme a success.

As for the stone and drop off, yes, I'd want to protect and include those stone inside the structure.

Being outside and unprotected, those stones will actually act to bring the freezing to the roots. They are just too close for our zone freezes.

But you have a great opportunity here. Put your little structure so that it covers the rocks and down to the grass, maybe even a few inches away from the rocks. The mini GH you showed, being too small, would have a problem with the drop off, if I'm seeing it correctly. I suppose that a drop off would be a minor problem for any GH, but you can fix that with temporary soil on the grass, behind the stones.

With the rocks on the inside, not only will they not bring the freeze in from outside, but they will actually help to retain some heat. When they heat up during the day, they'll give off the heat at night. Probably, not all night long, but for a while anyway.

If the rocks seem to be a problem, the another option would be to move the rocks a few feet out onto the grass and fill in with more top soil to level off with the palm's soil. In other words, extend the bed to be even, if you prefer that method.

Also, don't forget to put some water bottles or if you can make space, even a 25 gal pail of water (I HIGHLY recommend that). You know which ones I'm talking about? Those big blue ones from Home Depot with the stupid white rope handles? :) (see picture)

Having as much water in the structure as possible, really helps to buffer the temps. They make temperature changes much slower. You may have to cover the pails to keep the moisture in and not have high humidity inside the structure.

Don't forget to use some sort of electronic thermometer that shows temps and humidity.

Here's my structure from last year. It shows the pail as well as the blow dryer with thermostat.
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Here's the structure as it looks with the plastic on it.

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well blondboy47 thats kinda of cute, looks like a dog house. :-), now wouldnt that be something if we had set-ups like that all around the yard. LOL

I am going to have to try one of these set-ups one winter, just to see what happens.

Thanks for the help again. The palm has actually grown a decent amount since that photo when planted in May. For a date palm, the growth has really surprised me. I'm also looking into getting the greenhouse one size bigger now that would increase the dimensions by about 1 foot each way to help with ground coverage.

Also, do you forsee the brick paver patio being a problem? If roots get up under there what are my options for protection then? Or would simply having the greenhouse extend over the patio prevent root freeze as well?

Orchiddude--I've thought a lot about just digging up this palm and replanting in the spring but decided not to for one reason. I wanted to learn how to overwinter palms here so that next year I can hopefully step-up to a much, much larger pygmy date palm without killing it. It may seem silly spending hundreds of dollars on protecting a $25 palm, but this way the most I'm out now is $25 rather than hundreds when I purchase the 'real' thing.

Thanks guys!

I understand. You might think of getting the GH bigger for next year aswell. If you leave that baby in the ground it will grow much larger by end of next year, probably out grow the greenhouse in 1 year. You need a way of expanding it so you can grow with it.

This one should do...4' by 4' by 56" tall. By the way, that is not me in the photo =-)
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Dude that chick is hot though!

LOL....

Well here is a couple of places that I was looking at that sells differenttypes of green houses. Hope this helps some you will have to copy and paste I think these web addresses

http://www.sheltersofamerica.com/productdetails.php?productid=200&id=7

http://www.all-shelters.com/greenhouse.html

http://www.advancegreenhouses.com/easy_2_build.htm

http://www.greenhousekit.com/ezgreenhouses.htm

Here's a 'back-up' heater system I found suitable in case the electricity goes out. A little pricey, but also kinda attractive (almost as much as the woman above!).

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thats a cute little heater. I think I have something like that you put on the end of a grill gas bottle. They work pretty good.