Albert's Greenhouse

The Alpine House is probably the newest greenhouse at Kew, and it serves two purposes which are almost the opposite of what a greenhouse is normally considered to be for: it keeps the plants DRY in the winter, and it keeps them COOL in the summer.

I have spent most of my life living in ignorance of the requirements of alpine plants - I always figured that they needed it cooler than normal, but I did not realize that so many could be grown at lower elevations simply by giving them good drainage, a dry winter, and a relatively cool summer growing season.

In fact, these conditions (sans the dry winter) are basically available in my backyard, and in fact the Alpine House at Kew seems to house a remarkable number of plants like Helicodiceros which are NOT alpine, but are from coastal mediterranean climates somewhat like my own.

Apparently, the soaring glass roof and a huge heat sink underneath the structure combine to keep things cool during the long summer days without using an undue amount of electricity. In fact, the cooling arrangements for most of the glasshouses at Kew seem to be fairly efficient since many of them date from before the introduction of electric fans to the greenhouse industry.




I have to say that some of the plants in there I had not seen in person before, or even necessarily heard of, and they did have some really cool leaves. Might be time for me to start an alpine collection.