Pollyanna Wilkinson: How I designed my dream greenhouse

Telegraph

2 days ago

You'd be forgiven for assuming that garden designer Pollyanna Wilkinson has always been a dab hand at growing fruit, vegetables and flowers. In fact, she admits, she 'hated gardening as a kid', only discovering a love for growing in her early twenties, when she started experimenting with tomatoes on her London balcony.
It wasn't until after she had had her two children that she decided to leave her career in marketing and retrain as a garden designer, launching her business, Studio Pollyanna, eight years ago. Since then she has gained a reputation for the relatable and informative gardening videos that she posts on her Instagram feed; her podcast, The Ins and Outs; and, of course, her beautiful and award-winning gardens.
In the gardens she designs for her clients, greenhouses and orangeries are often specified, and yet Wilkinson herself has only very recently moved into a house with a garden large enough to have one of her own. Since she installed it earlier this year, it has been life-changing.
'I've always just started things off on my windowsills, because I lived in town and had to grow things that would fit in a window box or a tiny courtyard,' she says. 'From January to April each year, every sunny windowsill in the house would have things growing on it, whereas now I can just leave it all in the greenhouse, and everything has leafed up so much quicker. I'm learning that I can grow things I haven't grown before, and start things off way sooner. It's been a complete game-changer.'
Here's how she decided on her perfect greenhouse set-up, and what she grows in it.
The position
The first consideration when deciding where to place a greenhouse, says Pollyanna, is light. 'Sometimes a client will want to squeeze a greenhouse in, and it might be underneath a giant oak tree where it's never going to see the light of day. That's going to lead to some very leggy plants,' she says. 'It needs to be somewhere nice, bright and sunny, so that the plants get enough light to thrive.'
The second consideration is whether or not you want to see the greenhouse from your house. In some clients' gardens, she will make the greenhouse a central focal point, perhaps seen through a hedge or a gate; in others, it can be hidden in a part of the garden not seen from the house. 'You might not even know it's there until you enter into that area of the garden, which gives it real wow factor. It's worth thinking about whether you want it to be a focal point or whether you want it to be a reveal, both of which have their charm.'
In Pollyanna's case, 'The sunniest part of my garden is near the house,' she says, 'but I have children who use footballs a lot, so the greenhouse couldn't go there.' Instead, she placed hers beyond the lawn – where it still gets plenty of sun – and next to her garden studio, so that the two structures form a little L-shaped courtyard with an outdoor seating area.
The design
Pollyanna chose a greenhouse from the National Trust range by Alitex, measuring 3 x 2.6 metres. 'I wouldn't want it much smaller than this, because I wanted to have enough space to propagate and grow things,' she says, 'although frankly, anything is better than nothing with greenhouses.'
The size of your greenhouse will naturally depend on the size of your garden, but also on how you intend to use it. 'We'd put a 3 x 2.6 model in a small urban garden, as it gives you enough space to potter about, and you won't grow out of it too quickly,' she says. 'Some clients want to be able to host a dinner party in their greenhouse, in which case you really need a lot of room – enough for a table, plus some space to grow things.'
When it came to the aesthetic, Pollyanna says, 'I knew I didn't want a typical working greenhouse. I wanted it to be beautiful as well.' She opted for a deep bronze-coloured aluminium frame that blends into the surrounding greenery in her garden, with a wainscot (panelled) base. 'I wanted a traditional-style greenhouse, but with a more contemporary base, because a brick base might have jarred with the black tongue-and-groove cladding of my garden studio,' she says. A panelled base is also quicker and easier to install than a brick one.
The specs
Pollyanna wanted to be able to grow tomatoes in the ground inside the greenhouse, rather than in grow bags, so she has combined a limestone floor with an in-ground planting area on one side, leaving plenty of space elsewhere for shelving and a gravel bench.
She has a potting shoe – essentially a tray with a tall back which can be filled with compost, acting as a potting bench – which is serviced by her favourite feature, the water pump, which draws water from a reservoir which collects the rainwater that drains down from the roof of the greenhouse when it rains. 'I wouldn't be without that: it's amazing how much I use it and obviously the rainwater is a lot better for the plants [than tapwater],' she says.
There is a shade for the days when the sun is too intense, and the greenhouse is also fitted with a self-opening window, which works by way of a Bayliss piston – a cylinder fitted to the roof, filled with a cylinder of wax which expands as the temperature rises, activating a piston that opens the window. 'I'm completely obsessed with it,' says Pollyanna, 'it creates a chimney effect, allowing the air to move around.'
She has a power source so that she can add heat in winter. 'I don't have lighting, though,' she adds. 'I ummed and ahhed about that but I didn't think I'd be out here in the evenings. Little did I know.'
What's growing
'My grandmother was a really passionate gardener, and she used to grow really exotic pelargoniums, so that smell of pelargonium leaves in the greenhouse is just an iconic scent for me,' says Pollyanna. 'That's why I've got so many in here: my aspiration was, I want a greenhouse, and I want it to be full of pelargoniums.'
She has snapdragons, cosmos and dahlias, and various fruit and veg, including padrón peppers, strawberries, kales and broccolis.
She is most excited about her tomatoes: 'I've never grown tomatoes in a greenhouse, they've always been outside,' she says. 'Last year's looked great but tasted of nothing, so I can't wait to see how they do in here.' She has also managed to overwinter herbs: 'all those things that would just snuff it outside in the winter.'
The biggest problem with the greenhouse is, she says, 'the fight with the other half' – her partner is also a garden designer. 'He loves tropical plants, and I don't,' she says. 'There's one plant in there, a Christmas cactus, and I hate it, it's ruining the vibe. It's totally at odds with the geraniums, but he loves it.'
That aside, for now she is revelling in her first summer of greenhouse gardening. 'I think one of the biggest privileges and pleasures of having a garden and having a greenhouse is having a cup of tea in the morning and wandering down, having a look to see what's changed overnight,' she says. 'To me, it's that mindful practice of getting up, walking down here, saying good morning to the plants and the birds.
'As a really keen gardener, it's the ultimate thing to hope for, to have somewhere where you can grow it all, rather than having it on your windowsills. Although I probably will still grow things on my windowsills too.'
Greenhouse design tips, by Nelly Hall, creative director at Alitex
Knowing what you want to use your greenhouse for is really important. Is it just for growing, or is it for sitting in too, and have you got enough space for both? For me, I want to be able to sit in my greenhouse; I want to have coffee in it in the morning and a gin and tonic at night, so I've got a reclaimed tile floor and an old metal table and chairs. We decorated it with bracken and fairy lights at Christmas.
A power supply is really helpful, particularly to provide heat in winter. I have mine on a half setting, so I can grow salad leaves and pelargoniums over winter. A propagator is great for heating a small space.
If you want to be able to use your greenhouse all year round, consider including a light source.
The colour of your greenhouse is important: it doesn't have to be off-white. Really big greenhouses look right in a classic sense in white, but in a domestic garden, a darker colour blends with the planting and disappears. It's like painting a fence black; it makes the colours pop.
In terms of position, an east-west ridge run is perfect, and don't put it under a tree – it will get covered in birds' mess.
It's amazing how much rainwater you can collect when you get a deluge. It's important to factor in something to collect as much of that rainwater as you can.