How to Heat Your Greenhouse | Gardener's Path

A greenhouse serves as a fantastic option to grow plants in locations or seasons where they wouldn’t fare well by themselves due to the local weather conditions and climate.

Plus, they can be a stylish addition to the landscape in their own right! I mean, what building adds to the gardener aesthetic better than a hothouse?

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But a hothouse is more than just a structure. It also creates a miniature ecosystem, one that you’ll have to maintain at a certain temperature in order to keep the plants within alive. Sometimes this means lowering the temperature, other times raising it.

It’s the latter that we’ll be discussing in this guide. In addition to types of greenhouse heating, we’ll cover the basics of glasshouse heat, along with things you’ll want to consider when selecting a method to use in your own backyard.

For some expertise on this topic, I recruited the aid of a former teacher: Dr. Mary Ann Gowdy, Teaching Assistant Professor of Plant Science and Technology at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Holding a PhD in crop science with an emphasis in greenhouse production, she certainly knows her stuff! Plus, Dr. Gowdy’s not grading me on this, which certainly takes the pressure off.

Here’s everything that awaits in this guide:

Keeping a hothouse at a desired temperature comes down to simple thermodynamics: heat loss must equal heat gain.

If that equation becomes unbalanced towards either side, then the plants within the glasshouse will either freeze or fry. And there are multiple ways that a greenhouse can lose warmth.

Conduction occurs when heat is lost as it transfers