Alpine Houses – Glass Umbrellas

Alpines need very special conditions. They are plants of the high mountain tops and do best when they have a cool and breezy environment. Alpine plants need cool roots and breezy tops plus protection from mild warm rain. To achieve this the Alpine House is designed as a large umbrella. In an Alpine House as many as possible of the windows need to open.
To keep the roots cool the pots and pans containing the plants are plunged deep into cool wet gravel. This needs to be free draining, Alpines do not do well if they are kept too wet. The plunge beds to hold this depth of gravel need to be well supported or even designed as brick raised beds. An Alpine House will need to be strong enough to support the many kilograms of gravel your plunge beds should contain.
The “All Cedar” Alpine House has been specially designed to provide the ideal growing conditions for plants from Alpine habitats.
Ample ventilation is ensured by a continuous line of ventilators along both sides of the ridge and along both sides. Sliding ventilators can be included in the sides below staging level. The Alpine House is strongly built to allow the ventilators to be left open for maximum ventilation while at the same time providing protection from rain and damp.
The Alpine House is fitted with plunge bed stagings along both sides. This can either be constructed as a timber framing with gravel boards round the sides or as individual fibre-glass plunge bed trays designed for ease of watering and drainage. In either case the pots and pans can be plunged to a depth of over 75mm in cool free draining gravel.

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1 Boarded base Alpine House | 2 Hexalight as Alpine House | 3 Plunge bed staging | 4 Garden Frame for an Alpine collection | 5 Brick built plunge beds

The design proportions of the Alpine House are similar to the “Extendible Unit” and “General Purpose” greenhouses but of a heavier construction. The Alpine House requires a strong structure and generous timbers to support the plunge staging and to ensure stability to compensate for lots of opening windows.
The Alpine House is constructed of Western Red Cedar and is supplied complete with all necessary glass cut to size and sufficient linseed oil putty and brass sprigs for glazing, together with all ironmongery for erection. Western Red Cedar is an ideal timber for plant-house construction being highly durable and requiring only the minimum of maintenance over its expected lifespan of 50 years.

Information… Cultivation Alpines need to be soaked regularly as they would on a wet mountain top but they must then be allowed to drain rapidly. If your collection is in a plunge tray fitted with a drain tap in the bottom then the tray can be flooded, left to soak for a short time, then drained completely. Our thanks to one of our specialist customers for this tip.

If a larger Alpine House is required our “Brick-Base” Alpine Houses of heavier construction can be built to any size and are individually designed. Internal raised beds in place of staging can be designed into the structure as part of the brick base. Examples of our Alpine Houses can be seen at Botanical Gardens around the country.
You can see more of one of our Alpine Houses at Edinburgh Botanic Gardens if you visit their site @ rbge.org.uk. They have an Alpine House made by us in 1977.