SIX THINGS TO DO IN A TRADITIONAL WINTER GREENHOUSE

FORCE SPRING BULBS

Head gardener Tom Brown, who looks after the 12 Victorian glasshouses at West Dean, Sussex, knows all about keeping greenhouses looking good in winter. This year he’s filling his staging with super-early forced spring bulbs.

“When you grow bulbs in pots you get them up to eye level,” he says. “In winter, when there’s so little colour around, you pick up on their beauty even more.”

You can indulge in the daintiest spring bulbs under glass, safe from the hurly-burly of the open garden. Tom likes miniature tazetta Narcissus ‘Avalanche’, hyacinths such as dark maroon ‘Woodstock’, early-flowering species tulips like Tulipa humilis and crocuses (Crocus chrysanthus ‘Snow Bunting’ is scented). In a greenhouse, they flower weeks sooner than outside.

Plant into reclaimed terracotta pots now, give them a soak to settle them in, then don’t water again till they produce shoots. After that, water a little more and feed with liquid seaweed every few weeks. Once they’re over, pop the pots in an out-of-the-way corner and do it all again next year.

HANG ON TO SUMMER Summer bedding pelargoniums don’t know when to stop: give them the slightest encouragement and a middlingly warm greenhouse and they’ll often just keep flowering.

Scented-leaf pelargoniums and old Victorian “unique” varieties are particularly good for winter flowers. Pot up into generous containers and bring under cover, but instead of drying them off to overwinter, keep watering (a little more sparingly) with the occasional dose of high-potassium tomato feed for summery flowers till spring.

Don’t wait till spring to start your veg garden – hardy broad beans are good to sow now

GET THE VEG GARDEN STARTED Greenhouses are seed-sowing powerhouses, but don’t wait till spring: get ahead and sow hardy broad bean ‘Aquadulce Claudia’, Japanese onions and garlic into saved loo roll inners and newspaper modules now. Move into a cooler cold frame for winter, then plant out in February as robust seedlings with a month’s head start.

VISIT THE TROPICS…

Turn up the heat and you can transform your greenhouse into a paradise filled with exotic blooms. In the heated greenhouses at West Dean, where the temperature never drops below a balmy 10-15C, Tom goes to town in winter with jungles of waxy anthuriums, flouncy clivias and hippeastrums (amaryllis).

But if you’re not keen on remortgaging the house to pay the heating bills, fake it. Start with generous potfuls of ravishingly beautiful Nerine sarniensis (aka the Jersey lily) – often still flowering in December – and elegant Amaryllis belladonna (common name, the Guernsey lily). With gentle warmth, around 5-8C, Tom says large-flowered Cyclamen persicum, streptocarpus (cape primrose) and even cymbidium orchids flower right through winter.

“Exotic plants relish the bright, dry environment in a greenhouse,” he says.

GROW A WINTER SALAD BOWL Why not free yourself from the tyranny of bagged supermarket salads this winter by packing your greenhouse with greenery? Hardy lettuces such as ‘Black Seeded Simpson’, oriental mizuna, herby chervil, spicy American land cress and crisp Claytonia perfoliata all thrive in cool greenhouse borders through winter.

It’s too late to sow seed, so stock up on ready-grown plug plants (rocketgardens.co.uk): plant straight away, 6in apart, and they’ll be pickable from November.

STASH YOUR DAHLIAS

In southerly bits of the country you can risk leaving frost-tender tubers like dahlias, cannas and yacón outside, tucked beneath a blanketing mulch of autumn leaves. But if you garden where frost bites deep, carefully dig them up to bring indoors for winter. Dry, frost-free greenhouses make invaluable dahlia storage sheds.

Cut back foliage, brush off any soil, tie a label round the neck and dry upside-down for a fortnight. Then pack into crates, cover with spent compost and stash under the greenhouse staging till spring.