Greenhouse

The greenhouse at Oceanside Garden was built in 2019.

I had very quickly ran out of room on the windowsills of the house for seed starting. What was needed was a greenhouse. There are very few areas of the garden that are flat enough, or have enough sun for a greenhouse and so it was to go in the only logical place, even if it somewhat defies convention.

The ‘front’ of the house, is hardly what any of the houses on our street would call the front. The views are in the opposite direction and so the fronts are mealy the access point. This house has no front garden, so to speak. Just lots of parking spaces because it was originally intended as a summer home or vacation rental property.

When we first saw this property, we immediately named it the frowny house. With the top windows, we though it looked as if the house had a big frown on it. We had wanted to fix that at some point. What we also found is that during winter, bringing groceries in was a pain. We get very wet and very windy and there was no protection for the door. So we decided to get a porch built with a greenhouse on the side.

This is what it used to look like, with the hedge and a highly overgrown “courtyard” filled with a Rhododendron, a Japanese maple and a row of Sarcococca along the wall.

Transformation

The transformation took place in 2019 and the first step was to clear the land. The Escallonia was pulled out, the raised box along the wall removed and the Rhododendron and Maple cut down. A clean slate.

It is great having contractors who I can work with. That not only makes sure I get what I want, but I can learn along the way and I am more than capable of helping out and making progress – especially in the evenings and weekends when they would set me homework. Thanks Steve and Mike!

I didn’t take many pictures during the construction but here is the finished area.