You should carry out maintenance on your greenhouse at least twice a year, and you can empty it temporarily of plants without worrying the weather is going to kill them.
Once you’ve cleared the greenhouse, turned off the electricity and protected the sockets, you can clean out all the pots, boxes, trays and tables inside and remove any rubbish from the ground.
Cleaning the glass can be a pain of a job, so it’s best to tackle the windows inside and out with a hosepipe and brush.
Dirt which is caught between overlapping panes can be dislodged with a plant label or similar flat instrument and then rinsed off.
Glazing bars, staging and floor should be washed with a greenhouse disinfectant – make sure you wear protective clothing and rubber gloves for this job.
Don’t forget the glass may still need shading after you’ve cleaned it as hot days in late summer are still strong enough to scorch plants.
If the greenhouse is leaking around the window panes, find the weak spot and block it up with mastic tape.
You’ll also need to get on a ladder to clean out the greenhouse gutter of debris and make sure the brackets are still strong and firmly attached. A leaking gutter can cause rotting frames on a wooden greenhouse.
If there’s only a small leak, again it can be fixed with mastic tape, but if it’s a bigger job you may have to totally replace the guttering and downpipes.
If you have a wooden greenhouse and your frames show signs of rotting, cut back the rotten wood to where the wood is sound and replace it with something strong such as pressure-impregnated timber.
New bare wood should be rubbed down with wire wool and then protected with an exterior wood stain or primer and gloss.
Once you’ve given your greenhouse a good clean, you can get on with all the late summer tasks for which your greenhouse is necessary.
You still need to ventilate the greenhouse daily but close the vents on cool nights.
Now is the time to take cuttings of tender perennials such as fuchsias, pelargoniums and argyranthemums to produce strong plants that will survive the winter. The rooted cuttings will need potting up and putting in the greenhouse.
If you want to start planting your autumn bulbs and need to empty your pots and troughs of tender perennials that you don’t want to lose, simply cut plants back leaving enough shoots for regrowth in the spring and replant each one in a 6in pot of compost, watering them in well.
Your greenhouse will need to be frost-free if they are to survive, and the plants will need to be watered very sparingly through winter and not fed.
If you fancy some indoor plants in the coming months, sow cyclamen seed now and place them in your greenhouse. Dormant plants can also be watered to bring them back into growth.
Author: Jonny
Author of Gardening Life!