A winter garden is a kind of
garden
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...
maintained in
winter
Winter is the coldest and darkest season of the year in temperate and polar climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Dif ...
time.
History
The origin of the winter garden dates back to the 17th to 19th centuries where
European nobility
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally appointed by and ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. T ...
constructed large
conservatories that housed tropical and subtropical plants and acted as an extension of their living space. Many of these were attached to their main palaces. Earlier versions were constructed of masonry with large windows and a glass roof, usually in the
Classical or
Gothic styles. While in the 19th century many of these conservatories were made out of iron and curvilinear glass.
Winter gardens were not just restricted to private residence; many were built for the greater public. The first large public winter garden was built in 1842–46 in
Regent's Park
Regent's Park (officially The Regent's Park) is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the London Borough of Camden, Borough of Camden (and historical ...
, and was used for evening occasions, large flower shows and social gatherings.
[Kohlmaier, Georg. Houses of Glass: A Nineteenth-Century Building Type. MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1991.] Other winter gardens, such as
the Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around ...
by
Sir Joseph Paxton
Sir Joseph Paxton (3 August 1803 – 8 June 1865) was an English gardener, architect, engineer and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Member of Parliament. He is best known for designing the Crystal Palace, which was built in Hyde Park, London, Hyde ...
in 1851, were soon built and used for a variety of purposes.
Present
The modern winter garden is usually a garden planted either to produce food, or at least to remain visibly planted and slowly develop, throughout the winter, or else a garden whose plants will serve as living decoration all winter. One basic premise to the winter garden in temperate or colder regions is that the plants may become dormant when snow covers the ground, but will grow each time the sun heats at least part of the plant to above
freezing temperature, even if there is snow. This is especially the case in regions where snow cover and below-freezing temperatures are not constant for months at a time.
Common winter garden
vegetables
Vegetables are edible parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. This original meaning is still commonly used, and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including flowers, fruits, ...
include:
* Several breeds of
winter-hardy cabbage
* Specific winter-hardy breeds of
broccoli
Broccoli (''Brassica oleracea'' var. ''italica'') is an edible green plant in the Brassicaceae, cabbage family (family Brassicaceae, genus ''Brassica'') whose large Pseudanthium, flowering head, plant stem, stalk and small associated leafy gre ...
*
Winter rye is grown where a summer garden will be, in order to protect the ground from weeds, and provide soil amendment when tilled directly into the soil the following spring
*
Beets
*
Carrot
The carrot ('' Daucus carota'' subsp. ''sativus'') is a root vegetable, typically orange in colour, though heirloom variants including purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist, all of which are domesticated forms of the wild ...
s
*
Allium
''Allium'' is a large genus of monocotyledonous flowering plants with around 1000 accepted species, making ''Allium'' the largest genus in the family Amaryllidaceae and among the largest plant genera in the world. Many of the species are edible, ...
s—onions, chives, and their relatives are evergreen, though some may die back during the winter and recover in the spring.
*
Oregano
Oregano (, ; ''Origanum vulgare'') is a species of flowering plant in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It was native to the Mediterranean region, but widely naturalised elsewhere in the temperate climate, temperate Northern Hemisphere.
Oregano is a ...
(including
marjoram) -- known to hardily survive the winter up to
Zone 5
See also
*
Greenhouse
A greenhouse is a structure that is designed to regulate the temperature and humidity of the environment inside. There are different types of greenhouses, but they all have large areas covered with transparent materials that let sunlight pass an ...
*
Hardiness zone
A hardiness zone is a geographic area defined as having a certain average annual minimum temperature, a factor relevant to the survival of many plants. In some systems other statistics are included in the calculations. The original and most widely ...
*
Winter sowing
References
External links
Underneath the archesThe Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
on
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...
's public winter garden
Up From the Ashes Collection
{{Authority control
Types of garden
Garden
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...