Why Are Greenhouses Present In Botanical Gardens?

Greenhouses are structures with suitable walls and roofs in botanical gardens that provide a controlled environment for plants to grow. They are designed to maintain warmth and humidity within the greenhouse, providing plants with the optimal environment for their growth. These greenhouses are often used in temperate and frigid zones, where the outside is frozen and snowing while flowers bloom inside.

Botanical gardens often work in tandem with each other, exchanging seeds, pollen, and genetic information to preserve rare, threatened, or endangered species. Having a traditional greenhouse allows individuals to learn about different flowers and plants, as well as display beautiful and fragrant flowering plants, rare plants, edible plants, utilitarian plants, seasonal plants, and houseplants from around the world.

Greenhouses are also used to propagate plants that may not survive seasonal changes. They provide a safe haven for plants by reducing the accessibility of insects and animals that could damage or destroy them. Greenhouses promote plant growth by using visible sunlight to fuel photosynthesis and trapping heat to keep plants warm.

Greenhouses are used in botanical gardens for several reasons, including growing plants that are not native to the local climate or require more environmental control over the conditions in which plants are grown. Most botanical gardens contain greenhouse chambers for harvesting purposes, allowing growers to have more environmental control over the conditions in which plants are grown.


📹 Touring the Greenhouses at The Botanic Garden at OSU

Oklahoma Gardening is a production of the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University …


Why do humans use greenhouses?

Greenhouses are utilized by humans for the cultivation of plants due to their capacity to maintain a temperature higher than that of the surrounding environment, even during periods of low temperature or nocturnal conditions. Such structures are also referred to as “hot houses.” A comic-style illustration of a greenhouse under a bright sun depicts the sun in the top left corner, a representation of translucent blue walls and a roof in the center, and long brown planters filled with leafy green plants along the floor.

What is the aim of a greenhouse?
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What is the aim of a greenhouse?

Population growth and limited food availability have become global concerns, with the world population increasing exponentially while food production has only increased arithmetically. This has led to a decrease in food per capita availability, particularly in oils, vegetables, fruits, and milk. The increase in urban areas has also resulted in less land available for cultivation, leading to more food requirements. To maximize production and meet global demand on food, vegetables, flowers, and horticultural crops, it is necessary to increase the effective production span of crops.

The sun is the source of energy for plants and animals, which is converted into food through photosynthesis at suitable atmospheric conditions. Greenhouses, also known as controlled environment greenhouses, provide these conditions, allowing for growth and fruiting outside the cultivation season. This allows greenhouse production to be advanced and continued for longer durations, ultimately increasing production.

Greenhouse technology has evolved to create a favorable environment for cultivating desirable crops year-round. This concept can be extended for crop drying, distillation, biogas plant heating, and space conditioning. The use of greenhouses has increased significantly over the last decade, covering up to several hundred hectares. Most of the production is commercialized locally or exported.

However, the effective utilization of greenhouses requires dealing with specific climate problems like frost during winter and overheating in summer days. These problems highlight the need for tools capable of predicting the thermal behavior of a greenhouse under specific exterior conditions. Additionally, the greenhouse industry faces problems related to poor design of many greenhouses, such as inability to deal with frost and overheating during summer.

The comfort in a greenhouse depends on various environmental parameters, including temperature, relative humidity, air quality, and lighting. Although greenhouses can be used for various purposes, it is difficult to decide how to group information about plants that can be grown inside them. Indoor relative humidity control is one of the most effective long-term mite control measures, and can be achieved through appropriate ventilation, reduced internal moisture production, and efficient heating and insulation.

What is the purpose of a botanical garden?
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What is the purpose of a botanical garden?

Plant diversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate, resulting in a decrease in ecosystem services. About a third of the world’s vascular plant species face the threat of extinction due to various destructive activities, including over-harvesting and over-exploitation, agricultural and forestry practices, urbanization, environmental pollution, land-use changes, exotic invasive species, and global climate change. To address this issue, we need to develop integrative conservation approaches for plant species conservation.

Botanical gardens play a central role in meeting human needs and providing well-being by focusing on the study and conservation of plants, making the world’s plant species diversity known to the public, and promoting citizen science.

There are about 2500 botanical gardens worldwide, cultivating more than 6 million accessions of living plants, representing around 80, 000 taxa, or about one-quarter of the estimated number of vascular plant species in the world. These gardens play a central role in the ex situ conservation and exploration of global plant biodiversity, with one of the targets of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) being to have 70 of the world’s threatened plant species conserved ex situ.

Botanical gardens also play an important role in the preservation of species necessary for human use and well-being, which is likely to become increasingly important as climate change becomes more severe. By focusing on scientific research, in/ex situ conservation, plant resource utilization, and citizen science, botanical gardens can contribute to the conservation of endangered plants and their impact on human well-being.

What are the elements of a botanical garden?
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What are the elements of a botanical garden?

A botanical garden is a collection of greenhouses, shaded houses, tropical and alpine plants, and exotic plants, often run by universities and scientific research institutions. These gardens often associate herbs and research programs with plant taxonomy and science. They are partially open to the public and offer tours, educational exhibitions, art exhibitions, book clubs, open-air theatres, music performances, and other entertainment.

Botanists and gardeners work together to maintain a documented collection of living plants for scientific research, conservation, exhibition, and educational purposes. A botanical garden is typically an academic organization for people with a keen interest in science and the general public with broader consciousness and an interest in plant life.

Why do we have greenhouse gases?

Greenhouse gases absorb the sun’s heat, trapping it in the atmosphere and preventing it from escaping into space. This process keeps Earth’s temperature warmer, supporting life on Earth. Human activity contributes to the accumulation of greenhouse gases, boosting the greenhouse effect and altering climate. This leads to shifts in snow and rainfall patterns, increased average temperatures, and extreme climate events like heatwaves and floods. Different types of greenhouse gases have varying global warming potential.

Why are green greenhouses?

Green greenhouse covers offer diffused light, providing evenly distributed sunlight, preventing hot spots and sunburn risks. They provide shade, making them suitable for sun-sensitive plants. Green plastic regulates temperature by reducing heat buildup. However, it may reduce light intensity, potentially impacting plant growth during cloudy days or low-light conditions. Some plants may grow slightly slower under green plastic due to reduced light levels. Overall, green plastic is a beneficial choice for greenhouses.

Why do growers use greenhouses?

Greenhouses are essential for protecting crops from diseases, pests, and outdoor conditions like rain, droughts, high winds, cold temperatures, and snow. They allow for year-round growth in climate-controlled conditions, doubling annual yields compared to field crops. To maintain optimal light levels, additional lighting systems like HPS or LED lights are required. Partially insulate the greenhouse to reduce heating costs. Greenhouses also allow for easier management of organic crops, protecting them from insects and outdoor pollution, requiring minimal pesticides.

Why do we have a greenhouse?

A greenhouse is a safe environment for plants, reducing the access to harmful insects and animals and reducing exposure to extreme weather conditions like torrential rain and droughts. While seasoned gardeners love the idea of having a greenhouse, novices may wonder about the benefits of having and using one. However, there are several benefits to consider, including allowing for better control over plant selection, planting methods, and the returns on investment. By getting hands dirty and learning about greenhouses, novice gardeners can start their journey towards becoming the best gardener possible.

What is the function of a greenhouse?

The greenhouse effect is a phenomenon where greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, trap heat in the atmosphere, similar to the glass roof of a greenhouse. These gases trap heat, allowing plants to stay warm even during colder months. The greenhouse effect is similar to the greenhouse effect on Earth, where greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, allowing plants to grow and survive. The greenhouse effect is a result of the sun’s heat capturing the sunlight during the day and trapping it in the greenhouse, thereby promoting plant growth and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Why does the greenhouse effect occur?
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Why does the greenhouse effect occur?

The greenhouse effect is a phenomenon where greenhouse gases in a planet’s atmosphere insulate it from losing heat to space, raising its surface temperature. This can occur from internal heat sources like Jupiter or from its host star like Earth. In Earth, the Sun emits shortwave radiation that passes through greenhouse gases to heat the Earth’s surface. In response, the Earth’s surface emits longwave radiation, mostly absorbed by greenhouse gases, which prevents it from reaching space, reducing the Earth’s cooling rate.

Without the greenhouse effect, the Earth’s average surface temperature would be as cold as -18°C (-0. 4°F), much less than the 20th century average of 14°C (57°F). The burning of fossil fuels has increased carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere, leading to global warming of about 1. 2°C (2. 2°F) since the Industrial Revolution.

The wavelengths of thermal radiation emitted by the Sun and Earth differ due to their surface temperatures. The Sun emits most of its energy as shortwave radiation in near-infrared and visible wavelengths, while Earth’s surface emits longwave radiation at mid- and far-infrared wavelengths. A greenhouse gas absorbs longwave radiation, and Earth’s atmosphere absorbs only 23 of incoming shortwave radiation but 90 of the longwave radiation, accumulating energy and warming the Earth’s surface.


📹 Garden questions answered! (Greenhouse? Brugmansia? A plant named for you?)

2:15 Pronunciation corrections 4:16 Natives vs. non-natives 7:54 Have you grown Brugmansia? 8:49 Overwintering figs 10:24 …


Why Are Greenhouses Present In Botanical Gardens?
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28 comments

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  • Hi everyone! Thanks for sending such great questions. Links to all the articles I mention are in the description, and I added in time stamps for each question as well, so you can skip to whatever floats your boat. Oh, and I forgot to tell you to subscribe. So subscribe if you haven’t already, m’kay? Thanks! You’re the best.

  • There is so much truth to your statement; ‘any garden is better than no garden.’ I would rather see a garden, regardless how tidy or beautiful it is or isn’t, than a lawn or parking lot. Gardens always give you something to explore, something to inspire you and something that diverts life’s stresses. Naming a plant/flower after you has now been put out in the universe ✌❤

  • Thanks for starting your workday with all of us Erin. It’s so nice being retired – you can sit here in your jammies drinking hot tea, listening to the cold rain outside and your Q&A, thinking about gardening – but knowing that you don’t have to go outside unless you actually want to. 🙂 It’s nice to know you feel the same way about gardens that I do, and yes, all gardens ARE special. Hope you had a wonderful day too.

  • I’m surprised to hear so many people have said roses are too much work, I think it must depend on your climate and what predators you have to deal with. In the UK, apart from a quick prune in spring and the odd spray against greenfly, roses really aren’t any work at all – they seem to look beautiful even if you don’t really know what you’re doing! Especially the David Austins. Different plants for different places I guess.

  • I’m looking forward to the return of wine and weeds! A suggestion that would help me personally is what a weed first looks like as it begins to grow. I’d much rather pull them when they’re small, but the online resources I’ve found only show a mature plant. Thank you for all of your garden motivation and cheers to spring!

  • Erin Hillwood Museum in DC is the former home of Marjorie Merriweather Post, the woman who build Mar A Lago. She was the Post cereal heiress. Post cereal became General Mills while she was married to E.F. Hutton. Anyway the gardens are beautiful, and they have a really nice tea house. You have to have reservations to tour the house. She has some Faberge eggs & Catherine the Great’s wedding gown. I think I’m remembering that correctly. I love that place. It’s off the beaten path next to Rock Creek Park.

  • When we travel by car with our young kids. I always look for gardens on the way because it gives all of us time out of the car in fresh air. Plus makes me happy. Fernwood botanical garden is little but cute in Niles MI. Worth a stop and to stretch your legs. They have lunch there as well. Nothing over the top but quaint and fun!

  • Not vain! What gardener wouldn’t love to have a plant named after them! I ordered 5 new David Austins this year. I think my lack of care except water and maybe one or two feedings have given me the best results. We will see with this new shipment but I love David Austin roses. But I’m in 7a so it gets hot and humid here.

  • #1- I grow an upward facing Angel trumpet in my zone 3b and do not over winter it. It self seeds but is extremely easy to pull out what you don’t want come the spring. I have also transplanted seedlings but they just look sad for a few days before they perk up. #2- anyone who wants an amazing greenhouse needs to check out an Arctic Acres growing dome greenhouse! You can grow 365 days of the year, it is off grid and built for the north including -40 C temperatures! It’s incredible and on my bucket list!

  • I have a Datura that comes up every year (zone 6B Waterford Michigan) I love it and the smell is divine. It is in a protected spot up against my house but I have given the seeds to many others who say their plants are out in the open and are doing fine. It naturalizes by dropping the seeds from spiky pods that when the pod ages will dry and open up and have at least 50 seeds in it. I usually try to remove the pods before they age and open up because in the spring I end up having to get rid of so many little plants. Unlike the picture you showed, my Datura grows lower to the ground and the blooms are more outfacing than downward. If you want, I will send you some seeds. BTW, talk to Sunflower Steve, I’m sure he’d be happy to name a sunflower after you.🥰

  • Erin, I agree with you on roses. I feel climbing roses are a bit easier than bushes and have a much bigger impact for the work. Also, I love perusal these “10 minute” articles LOL, but don’t always have 30 minutes, so I tend to skip them. Would you please consider time stamping your Q&As so that I can watch the relevant-to-me portions. Thanks.

  • On planting only natives vs. planting interesting things you like….Tony Avents an American Horticulturist said something to the affect that if everyone only planted natives we’d never have all of the plant varieties we have. He said to imagine if we had that philosophy with people. To only have natives in our communities with no diversity. I love this and have no problem adopting this philosophy 😊!

  • I hope you get to have a plant named after you someday, that would be super cool! As the lucky owner of a potting shed and an unheated greenhouse (cold frame) I think you are so right about using a greenhouse, it really just serves as extra storage for me in the summer and fall. I do use it in spring and I overwinter some semi hardy plants. If one has to choose between a greenhouse and potting shed, I HIGHLY recommend the shed, it’s my happy place🥰

  • My husband built a cold frame with old windows and doors that we heat a bit, and he thought that I’d use it to start seeds. But I can’t. Unless you have a really tight lighting and heating system, it’s hard to have consistent enough conditions for good germination. There’s just not enough natural light in winter. And dips in temperature are really detrimental. Once I moved operations indoors I got MUCH better results.

  • I planted my brugmansia in a half whiskey barrel on wheels. It got 10 feet tall in one season easily. Absolutely beautiful. I rolled it into the garage at the end of season and wrapped grow cloth around it. I am in 7b. I got two more this year that I plan on putting in ground. I hear I can cut it back and deep mulch from a friend that has had success doing so.

  • My goodness, you responded to my questions two weeks in a row. I wish I could come up with a third question. If you don’t have any Louisville Ky gardens on your list, there are a couple to consider. We have 3 that were designed by Frederick Olmsted (he most famously designed Central Park in NYC), but my favorite is south of Louisville called Bernheim Forest (16,000 acres) with all kinds of areas to explore.

  • I really REALLY loved your response to the native vs non-native quandary – as you said, it’s such a big topic with so many layers but in the end, whatever gets you out there creating & enjoying your own garden is truly what’s most important. I have a quick question about a greenhouse you do have – your temporary greenhouse! You’ve said that you use it for hardening off seedlings in the spring by putting row covers on the trays when they first go out, etc., but I was wondering if you can give a little bit more detail on that. Hardening off is such a pain in the butt – any way of making it even a smidge easier would be a big win! I’ve already purchased one together with a small heater and thermometer but it won’t be going up for another couple of weeks so I’m getting all my ducks in a row. Thanks Erin!

  • I’ve never been a rose lover. When I got into gardening and realized that deer LOVE roses and that they often have disease and hardiness issues, I definitely wasn’t interested. But then I learned about rugosa roses. They spread, but I have a sunny sloped area that I want them to take over. The deer don’t bother them and the single flowers are fragrant and adored by pollinators. The foliage is really dynamic, so it looks good even without blooms. Oh, and the hips don’t lie. SOLD.

  • Erin, you would have to start the seed inside because it doesn’t bloom until late in my 7b season but you would love love love a “cork screw” vine. It is the coolest, most unusual bloom and it smells great. Then it drops just enough seed to come back the next year but doesn’t throw seed everywhere like Sweet Autumn clematis. I think you would love it!!!

  • ⭐️Gold Star⭐️ for me, I decided a couple of years ago to rid my gardens of the traditional orange daylilies because they have too much of spreading habit, and I got them all out in one fell swoop. Granted they’d only been there for 3-4 years so they hadn’t taken over yet, but I was still surprised when I didn’t find any to dig up the following year 😂

  • I have to laugh at myself. I thought my contacts needed a cleaning because a fog kept appearing as I watched this article. BUT then I thought are you running a load of wash/drying that is making the billowing fog on your right? LOL It’s amazing what we couch gardeners notice. LOL Have a lovely weekend..

  • Native plants are so well and great, however where I live, that means Sage brush and tumble weeds. It’s high desert. (We had-9F actual temp this past winter. Then add the regular wind 20 to30 mph with gusts to 40+mph and nothing to block it. We do have wild flowers for a couple of weeks in the spring but only on the scab ground. And no trees unless someone plants them. We also have a lot of deer as well as cotton tails and Jack rabbits.

  • Since I live near both Chanticleer and Longwood, I can say that Longwood has been working on revamping several of their outdoor spaces to create gardens that reflect the more contemporary and native influencers like Piet Oudolf. They still have the great conservatory collections and their special events but the gardens are definitely much more interesting and appealing to us home gardeners.

  • You don’t need to bring your Angel’s Trumpet inside to Winter over unless you want to grow it as tall as you saw at that arboretum that you showed. I have grown it and it reseeds itself. The seed pods are very prickly and the seeds will winter over just fine in your Zone. I am also a Zone 5 in Iowa along thr Mississippi River. It still grows about 3 to 4 feet high and is full of blooms that open at dusk and smell so good. They reseed so well that they can feel a little invasive. They need alot of space. I put them too close to my Iris patch and they overtook them.

  • Small and mid-sized (less than an acre) gardens are usually cultivated for density, and non-natives are the primary provider of that. You need real acreage to go native, they’re just spread-y and slow pokey in their blooming. Most people aren’t investing time and effort and cash for a garden that is in a state of fade most of the growing season. I’d like to see a public garden that is developed intensively for natives, good for education and a pleasant walk, and a living advertisement for one off inclusion in homeowners gardens. (I’m in the deep South, we have deer inside all the cities and things growing everywhere, not so many people flower garden very much. It’s a fight to keep nature from taking over rather than get things going.)

  • I’m skipping Dalia’s this year, I was tired of lifting them and storing them, no matter how I store them 1/3 always rott or dry our, always buying new ones so last year I leave them all 8m ground, winter was mild, we didn’t have snow at all, maybe 2-3 hard frosts, and maybe 10 light frosts, extremely mild winter we had, but it was wet, and they all rotted, I need brake from Dalia’s.

  • Question: I live in central Ohio zone 6A and have ordered two of the hardiest camellias, that are supposed to be hardy in 6A. I am going to plant them in my most protected spots. My question is, should I expect them to get to their posted max size, or will growing them at the edge of their hardiness zone keep them smaller? The sellers state that they could grow to 6-8 feet wide, but my best protected spots aren’t quite that wide, more like 4-6 feet wide. Thanks in advance!

  • People need to remember that “native” is only a relative term. Native in terms of what time frame? Plants have moved for eons from place to place. So when people say something is native to your area, do you have any idea what decade or century they are talking about? This entire topic has become SO political, so good versus BAD and that is totally nuts. Plants do not even stay totally the same. They cross pollinate constantly and the genetic characteristics expressed in each seed that sprouts are different. So the plants out there this summer are not even the EXACT same native plants that were in the same area last year. Add in the effects of wind, water, continental drift, critter movement on ground and in the air and obviously native is NOT one, set in stone, list of plants for your yard, town, state or region!