Hi! I'm a newbie to the greenhouse world. I live in North Carolina, and my husband is building me a fabulous greenhouse! It is almost finished and ready to go! We are now trying to decide what to do for flooring. Right now, we are leaning toward cedar mulch. Any advice on that? I can't wait to start using it, but I know I have a lot to learn. Please bear with me as ask stupid questions!!! I look forward to learning from you all!

Kelly

Nice greenhouse hubby is building for you! If you use mulch, put down a weed barrier first. You will probably have to replace the mulch periodically as it decomposes. One negative aspect of mulch inside a greenhouse is it is more prone to bacteria and fungus. I used very fine gravel (screenings) covered with flagstones since I wanted to retain as much heat as I could, but I live in the Pocono Mountains in PA, and with the exception of just a couple of months, our nights can be quite chilly.

Don't hesitate to ask questions; we all had questions (and still do!) when we got the greenhouse bug.

Jim

Thanks, Jim! Good to know about the mulch! I think right now, we are trying to be cost efficient with the plan of upgrading the flooring later (after recovering from the cost of building the thing 😂). I already have a weed barrier down, so that's good. Here in eastern NC, the weather is quite inconsistent. For example, it's 65 degrees right now...at 7am on December 28th. I'm a little concerned about baking things in the summer. But, I don't figure there will be too much going on inside the greenhouse during the summer.

My husband has done a great job! He even installed a solar panel and everything! Here are a couple more pictures of the inside...

Yes, Rome wasn't built in a day! You'll make changes and upgrades as you go along. I have done the same with my greenhouse since I built it a few years back.

It's looking great, @KellyNC! Welcome to NGA. I know you'll really enjoy your greenhouse. Jim is right that you will be making changes as you go along. Each area is so different, so we all do different things with our greenhouses.

I'm using an electric heater right now but hope to get a gas one going by next winter. We are now 27 in the daytime, with 8 inches of snow on the ground and more coming. My heater is working full time.

Wow! 27? Glad I live in the south! Hahaha....of course, our weather is generally a giant yo-yo. So....65 today, could be 25 tomorrow! I have wondered about heating and cooling. My husband has mentioned an electric oil radiator, but we'll figure that out as we go, I'm sure! Thanks for the warm welcome!

I've also wondered about the electric oil radiators. I used to go to a rural beauty salon and they used one of those for heat. She had to refill it about every 3 days, and it heated quite a large space very well. It just wouldn't be good if you had to go on a trip for a week or so unless you could get someone to refill it when needed.

I used an oil radiator my first winter. My understanding is they don't use as much electricity as a regular space heater. I never heard of one you have to fill. These are self-enclosed and the electricity heats the oil in the radiator. Mine is similar to these... https://www.delonghi.com/en-us...

I think the one my beautician used was just an oil heater. It looked like a radiator but had to be filled with oil it burned.

I use the sealed oil filled electric heater in mine. Bought a automatic remote control to set temps at my desire and so far it has been working for me well. Karen I am almost at your temp also 30 right now and first snow of the season and I hope the last. But us being not that far apart and you more north you will get more than us. Stay warm a whole week of cold days and nights.

Tonight it will be either 13 or 14 degrees according to the forecasters. It's 22 right now, and we're heading out to the spa. It really feels good when the weather is so cold.

And, we're unseasonably warm here. It was just about 50 degrees last night. Last week, we broke a record one day when we hit 60! The ten day outlook does not go below freezing during the days with a few nights in the upper 20's. Very unusual as we head into January.

Welcome Kelly! Your greenhouse looks really fab! I wish I had a handy husband like that.
I do use mulch on the floor of my greenhouse, I use Cypress mulch. But me greenhouse is a 'planted' greenhouse. There are no benches, most of the plants are either planted directly into the ground, mounted onto wood, some hang in baskets (orchids mostly). growing up totems, or in containers waiting to go into the ground.
I put in a small pond and a 40 foot stream/still pond to have water to create humidity in winter and hold and reflect heat.
The three central paths are lined with flagstones that also absorb and reflect heat back, and the paths are mulched.
My soil here is nothing more than sand, so the repeated applications of mulch almost every year have worked to help amend the soil, and also to hold and retain water around the roots of some of the more water hungry ones.
I tried laying down small river rock over landscape fabric in some areas, but it didn't work for me. Once the landscape fabric started to deteriorate, the river rock sank into the sand. Makes for good drainage now.
I think it all depends on your purposes. If you are going to have a traditional greenhouse with benches to set your plants on, and you have soil different from mine,(which I am sure you do) a pebble floor would look fantastic especially with flagstones!
Please show photos when you get to that phase! I love to look at other people's projects to get ideas on how to improve my own space

DO NOT use wood mulch in the greenhouse, you will be asking for problems.
What you want is 2A crushed stone which is about 1/2" to 3/4", comfortable enough to walk on and a solid base for any future stone work. This recommendation was from a decades long grower that uses same on his greenhouse floors.

Hey Moonshadows, we are almost neighbors, I'm down in Easton PA.

Well, maybe I am living a charmed life with the mulch LOL I have never had any problems in 15 years. This is what my greenhouse kinda looks like, but, as with any advice, your mileage may vary. I like to vary the color every couple years. Sometimes I use red, sometimes natural, and sometimes brown. But I always use cypress, never pine park. Never had any problems.

Beautiful, Gina! Which episcias do you have?

None of them have names. We still have ONE local nursery here that is worth a darn... down from 3...when I was a licensed nurserywoman I grew ornamental bananas, taccas, plumerias and different alocasias to sell them wholesale for resale...long days ago. But they still have people like me who are hobbyists who have nursery licenses who grow stuff for them, usually succulents, african violets, hoyas, orchids and epiphytic cacti. Episica is one the the plants that has a 'local contributor' who sells them her propagated plants. If they have names, I didn't preserve them. They do really well in my greenhouse, they can get a little heat stressed in the dog days of summer and demand a little more water then. They have soil beds that were specially amended for them using peat, vermiculite, sand and aliflor.

I had a lot of episcias for years, but we began traveling too much and they all died. I'm now slowly getting them again. I have 3 or 4 now. They do love the greenhouse all except for the summer when mine goes to at least 103. I have some I need to pot up in hanging baskets because they have so many long runners.

They do spread!! But I love them. I had a very cool impatiens once, the Congo Cockatoo, I. niammamensis. Also called I believe African Queen? It did great in there for a while but eventually the heat killed it. They come from 'tropical Africa' but don't seem to be able to take much more than 85F for a long period. Kind of like my Dracula orchids that died a painful (undeath? LOL). But I find the mulch I use on the pathways and into a portion of the beds helps stuff like the episcia and definitely stuff like Epipremnums and creeping Philodendrons like Mamei and Gloriosum and the like have a good substrate for root development.

Wow!! I was out of town a couple of days and am just catching up on the posts! Thank you all for the feedback. My husband was excited to hear that people have good experiences with the oil radiators! Also interesting to read the various comments about mulch flooring. Will have to keep researching that! Right now it's just covered with a sturdy landscape fabric. Maybe that will be good enough for a couple of months? Just to give us time to research and save up?