Quick Trip to the Exotic Shed

One of my regular gardening routines in the winter, when I get back home from work, is to check up on at least one of the greenhouses or the garden outbuilding (which I'll call a shed for ease of reference) and make sure that the plants stored there are doing fine and taken cared of. I check them in turns, one evening one place and by doing it this way the maintenance is more manageable and short. 

It's a jungle IN there!

With it being already dark when I get back home, I'm not that inclined to spend so much of my evenings outside of the house so having a more streamlined routine, organised and in smaller daily doses suits us just fine. And it gives us a steady dose of gardening fix too, and peace of mind that almost all 'kept under cover' plants are checked on a regular basis.

And so tonight it is the turn of the shed to be checked over. Most of the plants that are in there now are actually the same plants that have been kept there for several winters already and so we know that the plants generally do fine there during the colder months. This shed is quite large for, well, a shed and is fully insulated, for in the past this was somebody else's (the one who built it) utility den. It has a couple of windows too which is handy for letting in some natural lights, hence the plants kept there are not under total darkness.

Parajubaea torallyi var. microcarpa - one of my favourite feather palms!

Getting too tall for the shed? Possibly, but this year they can still fit in without needing to be trimmed - Chamaedorea microspadix

There is also a growlight there that is timed to light up several hours everyday. On previous winters there was no supplemental lighting but last year when we added one it has made a noticeable difference to the health and appearance of the plants, looking much better once they come out from their winter residence and ready to take their spring/summer places out in the garden.

Ferns and palms are the main residents of the shed. We keep all of our Cyathea cooperi here

The Cling Film treatment... (photo: Dicksonia fibrosa)

I wrap some of the bigger, trunked tree ferns that we keep in the shed (and only in the shed, never the ones outside) in cling film... (photo: Cyathea australis)

This is to keep the trunk moist and makes it easier for me to water them. I just pour water onto the crown and the water soaks in and dribbles down, soaking into the trunk without splashing water all over the place (which isn't a good idea inside a wooden structure for obvious reasons). In the spring I unwrap them when they move out into the garden, keeping an eye that they are well watered throughout the growing season. (photo: Dicksonia antarctica)

This outbuilding may be more than your typical shed but we do treat it generally as a, well, shed. A place to store utility items, tools, paints, spare wood, etc. So the plants share the space with them. Maybe one time in the spring we'll get the chance to do a massive clear out of the things that are kept there (how many half used tins of paint do we need to keep?) but for now they all have to be snug there in each other's company. 

One thing that did cross our minds is to convert it to a den or summer house of some sort, making it look more like a lounge inside than, well, a shed. But will we use as such?? That was the question we asked each other and truthfully, neither of us thinks so. So it will remain with this function for now. We just to have do big clear outs from time to time.

Mark :-)