In article ,
Sacha wrote:

Ours seem to do okay, though of course, they're in very large greenhouses
and well-ventilated. The Thunbergia (which is planted) is out through the
roof and the Araujia, which is in a large pot flowers its socks off.

Yes. The point here is that the airflow in large greenhouses is
vastly better than that in small, pro rata.

Our conservatory does better, but we put a LOT of effort into its
ventilation (blowing the minds of the conservatory people and
builders). I looked at both Cambridge botanic garden and Kew to
see what the Victorians did about the problem :-)

And what did you come up with? Here, in very hot weather, Matthew sometimes
removes whole panes from the glasshouses but that's more for the benefit of
the staff than the plants!

Ah. 5 automatically opening top lights (c. 11% of the floor area)
and 5 large vents in the dwarf wall. It was the latter that raised
eyebrows - everyone said "but you can open the windows" - but the
air flow is proportional to the height difference. That was the
reason for the lantern at the top of many old ones.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.