"Then it came to me .... a conservatory, the kind the Victorians had, lean-to, with white-painted brick up to waist level, and ornamental mouldings and gutterings. If I could have that, with a door at one end of it and an electricity supply for heat, a well-insulated, tiled floor, then I should have my room, private, inaccessible from the house, a room in which to work and sit and look out and think, and also where I could try to grow a fig and a vine, and have a lemon tree and some lilies in pots. I would put a bench along one side, for bringing on a few early beans and lettuces and other tender plants (though this was not going to be in any sense a greenhouse), and a desk-height table, running all the rest of the way round, for working at. A sloping roof, with slatted, bamboo shades, and careful ventilation everywhere, and all would be well in every season.... Such a room of my own... is the stuff of dreams."
That passage is from Susan Hill's lovely The Magic Apple Tree: A Country Year
(The picture is of a glasshouse on a grander scale: yours - with a castle - for around £2,000,000.)
My husband, cursing, has recently dragged in our 7 quite large potted trees for the winter , a bay, an olive and 5 citrus, the latter with fiendish thorns. But we have twice had enough lemons for pies and 5 jars of marmalade! So no need for a greenhouse--just a furnace room with a window and a garage ditto.
This all began when we lived in a small rented house with only a paved courtyard and I said "I want to grow a forest in pots" we then had an oak, a maple, a ginkgo and an avocado, among lesser gry and it was great fun. Now er have the 5-6 feet tall trees mentioned above. The citrus all flowering wildly in the silliest parts of the house but their scent creeps everywhere.
Posted by: Erika | 14 November 2012 at 10:45 AM
Erica, would these help with the moving of the pots?
http://tinyurl.com/c6xq5sw
Posted by: ctussaud | 14 November 2012 at 12:04 PM