Bubble Wrapped

Over the holiday, 100 square feet of bubble wrap were delivered for the greenhouse. The purpose? Insulation. The air pocket will help keep the rising heat from escaping. Keeping the greenhouse warm in the winter is a challenge and we're still learning. We added two large buckets of water as heat sinks (plus the watering cans are full). There are two different heaters inside that I switch out depending on the weather. The next step was to provide better insulation so the heat wouldn't escape so easily at night... aka add bubble wrap to the ceiling. 

I put it up with packing tape, Mike cut the strips to fit the sloped ceiling. The window vent was a little tricky, but I basically wrapped it without overlapping the edges (in case I need to vent heat on a warm day in February or March) and then added flaps to block any drafts on those edges. 

I had just enough left to wrap the edges of the doorway as well. It's not a perfect draft guard, but any draft guard is better than no draft guard. 

We have definitely noticed a difference. If the heater is on, the temperatures in the greenhouse climb steadily and then stay warm much longer. We haven't had another night in the single digits, but there's a long winter ahead and I'm sure plenty of very cold nights are coming. We didn't do the sides because they are mostly protected by the house and fence. 

And most of the plants are happy! My ice plant, snapdragons and geraniums are blooming. When I try to overwinter most of these plants, they struggle inside, and are flourishing out here. Sadly the tropical plants probably should have come in - they are still not fans of the greenhouse. The patchouli didn't make it and the lemon verbena is still struggling. But without the greenhouse they'd be long gone anyway, so this is a fun experiment for me. 

There's nothing more cheerful to this gardener's heart than winter flowers, so winter blooms are a huge win in my book.