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my "wintergarden"


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Dear all,

as I frequently mention my "wintergarden", I want to explain a little better what I am talkong about.

This structure probably is nearly as old as I am and it is quite unique. It is built on a south facing balcony and most of my plants spend a part of their life cycle either in the wintergarden and/or the balcony. The balcony is quite empty at the moment, just some hardy drosera are flooded their for the winter.

Two pictures from the outside. The first one showing the south facing glass front and the eastern wall:

wintergarten1.jpg

There is a gap between the wall and the glass front where quite a bit cold air can come in during the winter.

a view through the partially opened doors:

wintergarten2.jpg

Currently, it gets quite warm on sunny days already, at least as long as I keep the doors shut. There is, of course, quite a significant temperature gradient from the floor to the top, but even at the floor the tempature rises to above 20 °C on sunny days now, whereas during the nights the temperature drops to nearly 0°C.

Now a view from west to east. On the topshelf currently a part of my pygmy drosera collection enjoys the rising temperatures. Probably already in april it may become to hot for the pygmy drosera in that position. Once that is the case, the great move begins: Sarracenia, Dionaea and normal Drosera will get a place on the balcony. The pygmy drosera then get a space on the wintergarden floor. The top shelf will then be free for tropical utricularia and tropical drosera (mostly D. indica complex plants and D. burmannii).

wintergarten3.jpg

Now a view to the western wall:

wintergarten4.jpg

Here you will see more pygmy and some climbing tuberous drosera on the top shelf. If you check carefully, you will find a flowering D. cistiflora on the middle shelf. Other plants on that shelf are larger tuberous drosera and some old germination experiments with pygmy drosera seeds.

On the floor currently many trays with Sarracenia, Drosera, Dionaea and some other plants are stuffed.

wintergarten5.jpg

I hope this helps to understand the conditions I can offer.

Dieter

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Sure. The plants are just outside the sleeping room. Not so bad...

Just one thing is not so nice about this: the structure tends to heat up in summer quite a bit even with the doors fully open. During hot spells the night temperatures do not drop much below 30 °C in the wintergarden. As a consequence, the temperature in the sleeping room quickly rises to more than 25 °C as well even with all the precautions we take. But then, at least the plants are happy. :sun_bespectacled:

Cheers

Dieter

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  • 3 weeks later...

Very nice. I would like to build something like this at my home for the majority of my CPs. My window-sills are still very full and the growing conditions not the best. Very important advantage of winter-garden is that the heating is not needed during winter. :) What is the temperature in your winter-garden during winter?

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The winter temperature really depends on the outside temperature. I live in one of the warmer parts of Germany and even if it gets quite cold in this area it may be milder in the city where I live.

Having said that, I will give you some numbers: lowest temperature this winter was about -1°C, previous year (in february) about -9 °C. Usually, the temperature does only drop very rarely below -3°C but it may stay freezing for several days. Such conditions are fine for many Sarracenia, Dionaea and even adult pygmy drosera. The tuberous drosera are usually the first I start to get cautious about.

It would be great if the temperatures would stay above 0°C, but I can not offer that without significant changes or even re-building the structure. For now I have to stick to the wintergarden as it is.

Best regards

Dieter

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Hello, oh no, temperatures below zero are not ideal for my plants. I would like to buid something, where the temperatures will be arround 5 degrees of C (rarely 0). A very small heating unit and good isolation should be enough, because of wide window is in the place where the wintergarden will be buit up. So I hope that I will be able to control the temperatures in wintergarden by opening the window. But unfortunately I live in the place where a very low temperatures are during winter (somethimes bellow -20). I will see later how to solve it.

So good luck with your wintergarden!

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