A Gates Mills Greenhouse Brings Four-Season Bliss

The herbs — sweet basil, chives, oregano, parsley, rosemary, thyme — and Swiss chard in one raised garden bed are thriving. The pale-green lettuce studding another should be ready to harvest in five or six weeks. A third is being readied for planting garlic.

But the looming end of Northeast Ohio’s growing season is evidenced in a fourth raised bed: The owners of the 5-acre Gates Mills property just picked enough tomatoes to fill an enormous basket, then dug up the plants and turned the soil. And the massive black powder-coated steel trellis arching eight feet over the cross of paths between the beds is bare. Climbing flowers, maybe some beans, cucumbers, peas and Jack Be Little pumpkins, won’t be planted to weave their way through the 3- and 6-inch-square spaces until next spring.

In this garden, however, the growing season never ends.

The arched trellis doubles as a dramatic canopy over the reverse-gable entry to a 300-square-foot greenhouse with a steeply pitched roof,Victorian-style cresting and finials. The plants inside range from sago palms flanking the entrance to baskets of fuchsia petunias hanging from the rafters to citrus and olive trees stationed against a knee wall faced in gray granite and topped in limestone, just like the raised-bed surrounds. The female homeowner points out a lemon, nearly full-size but still green, on one lemon tree.

“It will flower again in late November,” she says.

The facility was included in the couple’s master plan for the property. In fact, the area was plumbed and wired for electricity when their contemporaryEuropean-style home was built. Jeff Kenyon, president of Arcadia GlassHouse in Madison, recalls that the male homeowner showed him a drawing of a greenhouse he’d sketched when they first met in February. The avid gardener and his wife wanted a place where they could grow flowers, fruit and herbs they used throughout the year as well as do prep work such as seeding plants.

“He dreamed it, and we built it,” he says.

The resulting dark-bronze structure with an aluminum frame is equipped with almost every green-thumb amenity imaginable. The energy-efficient double-pane glass “has some built-in shading so the sunlight doesn’t burn the plants,” Kenyon says. A thermostat turns on an electric heater when the temperature falls to a set degree and opens screened lower-and upper-ridge vents to bring in cooler air and let warmer air escape when the temperature rises.

Fans facilitate circulation. (A humidifier and/or evaporative cooler can be added if the homeowners desire.) Grow lights over the potting bench supplement natural light as the days grow shorter.

“[The homeowners] took them down for now — you don’t need them in the summer,” Kenyon says. “You can put them in. You can raise them, lower them.”

Although the greenhouse is plumbed for an irrigation system, the homeowners prefer to water it by hand. They use rainwater collected in a 300-gallon underground cistern installed by Daniel’s Landscape & Design in Gates Mills.

Kenyon points out a bed of gravel around the structure’s perimeter. Runoff is collected in pipes laid underneath it and, along with drainage from French drains in the yard, directed to the cistern. The water is pumped above ground into an indoor spigot by an electric pump.

“Even a little bit of chlorine in city water — it doesn’t kill the plants, but it may hold them back,” Kenyon says. “So rainwater is ideal.”

The greenhouse already functions as a living space. The homeowners like to sit in all-weather gray-wicker armchairs under an indoor-outdoor wood-and-metal chandelier and enjoy a glass of wine in the evening. They breakfasted there the day we visited.

“In the winter, it will be the perfect time,” the female homeowner says. “We’re going to just sit in here and watch the snow.”

How will the greenhouse be used? The options range from a utilitarian facility to a climate-controlled conservatory attached to the home that also functions as a sunroom.

What is the amount of automation required? Those who travel frequently, for example, will want to consider climate-control and irrigation systems.

What will be grown? The answer will dictate the amount of shading in the glass. For example, “some vegetables need more full sun,” Kenyon says. “We can’t shade them too much, or they won’t bear fruit.”

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at home

5:00 AM EST

October 14, 2024