A home greenhouse are nothing new. They used to be known as conservatories and were used to house and grow all the wonderful and new plants being brought back to Europe, and especially England, during the age of exploration and beyond. Some even housed exotic birds and animals brought back from these expeditions.

Not only were conservatories used to house these exotic specimens of the collectors, they were also used to grow food as well. Perhaps the earliest recorded greenhouse type structure was used by Emperor Tiberius in 30AD to grow cucumbers. This was even before glass was being made so they used very thin sheets of mica.

Today your typical home greenhouse will have walls and a roof of glass or some type of translucent plastic. As we all know the white light of sunlight actually consists of a whole spectrum of light in different wavelengths such as ultraviolet and infrared. Glass and some of the plastics allow the white light to enter but only certain frequencies are able to get back out.

One of the most important to us for the purposes of our greenhouse is the infrared waves. This wavelength is the one that helps heat the inside air which provides the heat the plants need.

Open your car door and get inside on a bright day full of sunshine, especially in summer, and you know all about how light can heat the inside of a structure with glass walls. Greenhouses put this principle to work.

More than just being able to provide heat within a home greenhouse, as a gardener you know light is needed for green plants to grow. This is done via photosynthesis. This is a process by way the plant absorbs and moves nutrients throughout its system allowing the plant to grow and reproduce. This of course gives us whatever we are wanting from our plants that we grow within our hothouses.

Greenhouses help us control conditions in ways we can't if our plants are placed into an outdoor garden. The effects of wind, temperature, pests, moisture, and other variables are often harder to control outside the greenhouse.

Beyond all these aspects of greenhouses, they can simply be incredibly beautiful additions to our landscaping whether bought as a kit, you have someone build it for you or you build your own greenhouse. Whether a stand alone architectural wonder or a lovely room-expanding addition to the home, a home greenhouse makes for envious gardeners wherever they are found.