Greenhouse Therapy

Now that the Holidays are over, and the New Year, and we are moving toward a brighter spring or summer…I feel as if there is a light at the end of the tunnel. But when it comes to gardening, you all know that I love winter, and since winter or snow isn’t the problem, I am in my element (although, a bit stuck or trapped within it as well.).

I’ve been spending time revisiting old gardening books once again (preparing for a secret book project), and while rereading  these 19th century gardening books I’m struck by how little things have changed if one owns a greenhouse, at least in New England. The same plants listed in mid-nineteenth century books as blooming in January or obtainable from a Boston plant source, are the same plants that do well in my greenhouse. In fact, in the 1860’s, it was easier to acquires what we would define today as rare or unusual South African bulbs. Catalogs listed dozens of varieties and species of Lachenalia, Romulea, and even dozens of colors of Freesia.

We must remind ourselves that bulbs, seeds and dormant roots of recently discovered plants from South Africa, South America , Australia, Asia and elsewhere arrived via sailing ships in the great seaports of the East, and there were such things as mail order and catalogs. What didn’t exist were wholesale growers, Dutch mega-resellers and large nurseries, so in many ways, a good book with advertisements or a gardening magazine was often the only way for a plant enthusiast to acquire stock. It still surprised me though, that such plants as the tuberous tropaeolum species, where all available from multiple sources while today, only one or two sources worldwide exist. I have three books on my desk now which list T. azureum, the rare blue flowered tropaeolum, while today, with a global market, I would be hard pressed to find one tuber for sale anywhere.

These shortest days of winter can be brutal on the heating bill, especially if it is bitter cold and overcast, but we’ve been blessed here in New England with some mild weather, and if it dipped into the single digits, as it did last night, a good sunny day warms things up quickly. In one way, the lack of bubble wrap helps the radiant heat effect, by allowing even the weaker early January sun to feel just a tiny bit stronger than it would be if its rays had to pass through the poly-layers of it’s protective bubbles.