The aromas of fresh greenery and exotic flowers year round delight owners of winter gardens. Those who want to arrange an eternal summer at home are not getting smaller, and the options for creating winter gardens with their own hands, thanks to innovative ideas, are becoming more interesting. The industry offers a huge assortment of prefabricated structures for the construction of winter gardens, and independent decisions by gardeners to design mini-greenhouses create new original images.
Where can I organize a winter garden?
The theory says that the winter garden is a glazed extension to the house for rest and the creation of a green zone. Mostly it happens, but in private mansions. Residents of high-rise buildings have found a way for themselves and create a winter garden at home, with their own hands, on balconies, loggias, in rooms. Of course, such transformations must be done carefully and take into account the specifics of an eternally wet room with a large weight load on the structure. But modern building materials and new technologies help solve these problems. In multi-level apartments, sometimes a whole floor is allocated for the plants you like, having at the same time rest rooms, dining rooms, reception rooms, games rooms. And the inhabitants of the upper floors of the skyscrapers are slowly re-building the roofs above their own apartment to organize magnificent gardens of various styles and directions. Large companies with their own office buildings know how to make a winter garden - it is beautiful and stylish, increases the prestige of the company. Roofs, atriums, glazed passages attach to the building as an exotic lobby. Particularly relevant are such extensions in upscale hotels.
What structural materials are used to create gardens?
Creating greenhouses and conservatories with their own hands, they use ready-made metal, often aluminum, plastic or wooden profiles with glazing or completely constructed from modern composite materials. For small gardens that are created in high-rise buildings or on roofs, metal-plastic blocks are often used. Prefabricated prefabricated structures for detached houses are easier to install, since the engineers provided for the materials used in advance, the necessary roof slopes, and the degree of illumination of these structures. Individual, independent projects require careful consideration of the technical and architectural details of a beautifully painted garden, so that in the future snow and water do not linger on the roof, sunlight works to the benefit of plants, and the design does not require annual repairs. The use of films that protect against ultraviolet radiation helps to maintain the necessary temperature and humidity conditions for the green mass.
New materials that can replace glass
To build a winter garden with their own hands, instead of ordinary glass, modern technology recommends using self-cleaning material ETFE, which is called "synthetic foil" or in trade - Teflon. This plastic from the group of fluoroplastics has optical transparency, lightness, rejects liquid, is resistant to stress, friction, perfectly combines with various materials, which makes it possible to use this weightless glass substitute when creating winter gardens on roofs, loggias, atriums.
Glazing with glass composite or fiberglass, consisting of 65-75% glass, allows you to get all the necessary qualities to create the perfect atmosphere in the garden. The properties of this material are unique because, with the transparency necessary for light penetration, composite additives increase strength, high resistance to temperature extremes, ultraviolet, are environmentally friendly, moisture resistant and have been tested for use in windows, doors, and greenhouses. Such materials allow you to create a winter garden in any place without overloading the structure.
What you need to know about constructing a floor in a winter garden?
Good waterproofing of the floor is important for the garden under construction, because the influence of constant humidity, the effect of water and elevated temperature have a bad effect on the walls, floor and foundation of the house, and in high-rise conditions this can cause much more serious trouble. Therefore, the construction of a winter garden with your own hands should begin with high-quality insulation from moisture. To do this, it is recommended to use various mastics bitumen-rubber insulating, bitumen-rubber, insulating roofing, universal hot and cold method of application, or use rolled materials: glassine or hydroglass. For effective bonding of these materials, you can use a primer.
New technologies make it easier to perform such work, using polyurethane adhesive materials, which are poured on a concrete screed as a base for tiles or other flooring. After the preparatory work is completed, the floor is laid with expanded clay or paving slabs, linoleum for rooms with high humidity, natural stone or natural expensive materials, for example, cork.
What style to choose for the winter garden?
Construction work has been completed, and winter gardens with their own hands need to be filled with plants, create a certain style, complement with furniture. Landscape designers offer subtropical plants, ethnic orientation in design, for example, the creation of a Chinese or Japanese kindergarten, exotic flora, which sometimes require additional construction in the form of a small reservoir or imitation of a waterfall, stream, spring.
You can arrange a rose garden or flower garden in a green corner. Orchid lovers turn their winter gardens into a true tropical paradise and enhance the impression of exotic birds. If desired, part of the winter garden can be used as a mini-garden or grow your favorite berries and citrus fruits. It is perfectly possible to use in a private mansion a small plot of a winter garden, covered with grass, as a small simulator for golf or tennis, or combine it with a swimming pool.
Recently, creating winter gardens with their own hands, these rooms have been rationally combined with lounges, dining rooms, a bathroom, a lobby, an atrium, or connecting various buildings on the site.
What equipment is necessary for the functioning of the garden?
To create the necessary conditions for plants, do-it-yourself winter gardens need to be equipped with forced-air and exhaust ventilation, an adjustable heating system, and an irrigation system.
You can ventilate the room in a natural way, but it is ineffective, as well as the use of outdated systems with a couple of functions - air inflow and exhaust. And for heating, you can use a warm floor, but it’s much easier and more pleasant to install an expensive air conditioning system with the functions of humidification, cleaning, drainage, ionization, ventilation and fresh air ventilation or a computer-controlled climate control system that carries out all the functions independently. Photovoltaic converters, which will help provide garden equipment with the necessary electricity, are excellently proven.
For watering plants in enclosed spaces, they also came up with controlled drip systems that allow you to gently moisten the soil, without getting moisture on the floor and in regulated volumes, which is especially important for plants originating from different zones of the Earth.