What Is a Greenhouse Used For?

Growing from Seed

• You can use a greenhouse to grow tender plants from seed. Some plants can thrive outdoors, but only once they have grown sufficiently or the weather has become warm enough. Plant the seeds in soil, compost or another suitable growing medium and keep the seedlings in the greenhouse until they are ready to be planted outdoors.

Winter Gardening

• You can use a greenhouse to grow plants for winter use. Grow flowers and decorative plants to brighten up your home, or plant vegetables so you can have fresh produce in the winter months. Grow tomatoes, peas and beans in tubs, and plant root vegetables in boxes under the benches to save space.

Exotic Flowers and Plants

• You can use a greenhouse to grow exotic flowers that couldn't otherwise survive in your local climate. Tropical plants like bromeliads and some orchids prefer a hot, moist environment, such as you can create in a heated greenhouse.

Holding Over Plants

• Sometimes you will want to remove plants from your garden and replace them, perhaps when their growing season is over and they have stopped flowering. Instead of dumping them, you can hold them over in your greenhouse and use them as parent plants, allowing them to set seed (become pollinated and develop seed pods) so that you can harvest the seed to plant next year.

Growing Cuttings

• Cuttings are small sections taken from a parent plant and grown into separate plants. Cuttings can be vulnerable to changes in the weather, so it's a good idea to grow them indoors. You can find growing medium, a gel containing special nutrients and rooting hormones that encourage the cutting to take root. When it's established, transfer it to a pot of soil, and later bring it out of the greenhouse to plant in your garden.

Breeding Plants

• A greenhouse allows you closer control over plant pollination. You can create your own cross-bred flowers by carefully selecting the parent flowers for desirable traits, and then pollinating them by transferring pollen between plants yourself. You will need to keep insects out of your greenhouse to ensure that only the cross-breeds you want are created.