Hello, I'm brand new to this site and excited! I have a home with a room that is north facing and was once a hot tub room. It is not being used for more than a sitting room but it is a dry smelling room with some leaks here and there. My question is, could it be converted to a greenhouse of sorts? If so, what plants would be best suited to the room? The windows open and water is close by with access from the deck and from a bedroom. Any suggestions are appreciated, the cost is too great to take the room off of this house so we're being inventive!

Wow! What an opportunity! There are many types of plants you could grow along the perimeter...out from the roof overhang, but I would recommend that first you remove the carpet, and install a waterproof flooring. Wish I had that for my orchids!

Thank you for your suggestion! Would orchids grow well in a north facing room like this? That might be a nice experiment! I'm looking primarily for inside plants to grow. If you think of others besides the orchids I'd sure appreciate it.

Welcome to NGA! Wow, you have the perfect place to make a greenhouse and have fun with plants! Like Carol said, get rid of the carpet and have the flooring be something that water won't bother. You'd probably have to get rid of the drapes too. Put some hooks in the overhead boards so you could hang plants that aren't too heavy.

North light is great for a lot of plants when you have glass overhead, too.. African violets would love it. Begonias should do well. You could try boston ferns, Christmas cactus, crotons, dieffenbachia, pothos and ivies. Phalaenopsis orchids should be easy there.

Leave some comfy chairs and a table, but line the rest of the area with shelving so you can arrange plants on shelves. There are a lot of great wrought iron plant stands that I see in thrift shops.

I can see you enjoying your morning coffee, or evening wine in there. Heck, you could even eat breakfast or dinner in such a lovely space!

It would be idea to have a ceiling fan or stand fan in there for air circulation. That helps keep bugs and fungus down. Go for it, and enjoy it.

Most plants need air movement to keep the bugs and fungus at bay, so open windows in warm weather will be great, but you didn't mention screens. When weather is to cold for open windows fans will do the job.

Screens could be added if you don't have them. Most hardware stores will make them if you give them measurements.

Great room,great view. Depending on where you live ( you could add that to your profile) the room may need to be heated.

I have to put a bit of heat into my greenhouse during the coldest times. I just use a little space heater, but a propane heater would be more cost effective if the room isn't heated now. Edited to say I see an air vent in there, so it probably is already heated and cooled.

I was worried about "north-facing windows get no direct sun", but you do seem to have a glass roof.

We added a "four season sun room" off one corner of an under-used part of our house, to help us sell it. That room immediately became our favorite part of the house, and we didn't WANT to sell it!

If our current manufactured-home-park continues assassinating healthy trees, and takes down the two huge old beautiful pines in back of the house, I may try to get a clear roof and some cheap clear walls for that back deck and have a sun room / poorly insulated greenhouse.

That would be great, Rick! You'd love it! Our green house has double walled 16mil polycarbonate panels and holds heat pretty well.

I would think that most folks that added those Sun rooms in cold country would have added a furnace vent to it when it was built. For those of us that don't freeze, yeah, that twin wall Polycarbonate works pretty well.

My greenhouse has 5-wall super-polycarbonate because our winters come with -5 degree temps and 60 mph winds. I use an electric heater in the winter (to suppliment the solar system that works best in the summer - go figure). A lot of plants (including orchids) do not like gas heat.

We don't ever get that low here, so I have a programmable electric heater that rarely comes on . That is iffy because it has to run off an extension cord. Not an ideal set up.

I think I would live with only stored heat from the greenhouse effect, plus what leaks through the walls and sliding glass doors of my house.

It would feel silly to have a sunroom better-insulated than the rest of the (cheap, manufactured) home.

Thanks - I was looking for the word "polycarbonate".

RickCorey said:
It would feel silly to have a sunroom better-insulated than the rest of the (cheap, manufactured) home.

.

Hmmmm

well, our sunroom is probably better insulated than most of the rest of our house (not a "manufactured home"). The original house was built with 2x4's, the sunroom is built with 2x6's (so thicker insulation). Of course, there is also a lot of glass, with windows on 3 walls.

I do somewhat regret using "low-E" glass windows, which are not very plant friendly in the winter (in terms of plants that need a lot of light). However, most houseplants thrive out there, and it is certainly a pleasant place to hang out!

Wow! What a great forum with so many great ideas, thank you! I'm in northern Idaho on the border of Washington. We're in a valley so it stays pretty warm usually with the exception of this winter. We had a record amount of snow this year which is unusual for this area... people golf almost 365 days here. I'll update my profile. Thank you all!

Charity I lived in Clarkston when I was a kid, and still have a cousin there. Great climate!

Charity, I love your profile with you sweet son. Enjoy him, and have fun learning about plants and "meeting" everyone here. It really is fun and an education, too.

Hi Charity! Welcome to NGA.

You might not think that a "Pacific NorthWest" forum would realize that Idaho is part of the PNW, but we do! Some of the people who post there are from "the dry side of the mountains".

You might find some interesting threads. We're a small but friendly forum.
https://garden.org/forums/view...

( Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Northern California )

( If you haven't run into it yet, here's the entire list of ALL NGA forums:
https://garden.org/forums/ )