Our New Maze Greenhouse - Tips on Getting Started - Before & After

Over the past few months, we’ve been working on something really exciting in our garden - the build of our new greenhouse! It’s been a dream of mine (well heck, probably any gardener’s dream!) to have a greenhouse in our garden as part of our permaculture garden ecosystem. Somewhere to nurse our little seeds as they grow into seedlings, as well as to use it to extend our growing season and grow warmer-temperature plants.

If you’re thinking of adding a greenhouse to your garden, I thought I’d put together the below info for you to help you guide through the decision making process and to learn more about how it’s done. It’s all the info I would have wanted to see in one space, so hope this helps!

* Greenhouse sent by lovely team at Maze Products *

What size greenhouse to choose?

One thing I always hear when discussing greenhouse sizes with fellow gardening friends is that you should always get the biggest size you can reasonably fit in your garden. At first, I was thinking an 6x6 ft (180x180cm) greenhouse would be plenty of greenhouse for our backyard but after hearing this comment again and again, I measured out the space again and realised an 8x8 ft (240x240cm) would easily also fit in our yard. And now that it’s built, I am so glad I went with a larger size because even though I didn’t think I’d need that much space, I now realise how valuable that greenhouse space is for our garden and that I 100% know that I will easily fill this up. People always tell me ‘don’t you worry, you will find something to fill it up with!’ and I now see how true that statement is. Even though the greenhouse is taking up regular garden space, the space within the greenhouse is still garden space. And plus, it could also easily double up as an indoor sitting/working area as well

So as big as you can go, is what I’d recommend too!

I chose the Maze 8x8 ft Grey Greenhouse. I used to always dream of a silver greenhouse but when I saw the grey design which was different to what I usually picture greenhouses looking like, I thought the colour would look so beautifully in the garden. And it soooo does. I’m in love!

If you can’t figure out what size to get, I recommend mapping out your greenhouse space first to see how it looks and how it fits. We used bricks to map out our greenhouse space and sat with it for a couple of weeks before making a final decision!

What’s the best location for your greenhouse?

Another thing I spent ages trying to figure out was what the best location would be for our greenhouse. We all know that the sunniest spot is the best however when you’re competing with everything else in your garden that also wants a sunny spot, you start to run out of options. In an ideal world, you would put your greenhouse in a beautifully sunny north facing spot. However the reality is that most suburban gardens probably don’t have these ideal locations, with houses being close together and lots of trees/shading in the way, it can be complicated and lead you to think.. maybe I don’t have a spot for a greenhouse?

At first that’s what I thought, then I realised, it’s better to have a greenhouse in a B+ spot than no greenhouse at all. Sure you may not have a textbook perfect spot for a greenhouse, but there are most definitely plenty of spots in your garden that would work sufficiently. I’ve seen plenty of greenhouses be placed in less-than-ideal spots and as long as you get some sun (the sun is strong in Australia!), it should be more than enough for home-gardeners to benefit from greenhouses.

In our garden, I chose a spot that is north facing. However, this spot is shaded by neighbouring trees and houses during the day, BUT receives good morning sun, and afternoon sun.

How we prepare/create our greenhouse foundation

You can choose to build your greenhouse on either a concrete surface (so a concrete slab), or on a timber deck (or timber frame). Those are the main options out there but other people also use things like bricks, etc to secure their greenhouse. The main thing is that, you have to anchor it down to something very sturdy/heavy. Because there is 100% no point in building a greenhouse only for it to get damaged in the wind due to insufficient anchorage!

We chose to do a timber deck underneath our greenhouse. Some people just do a timber frame (so 4 pieces in a square/rectangle and anchor to that, with a weed mat or gravel etc as the surface inside). However for us, as we had grass underneath and also were worried about rodent problems, we decided to do a full deck underneath.

How we found the greenhouse ASSEMBLY process

The greenhouse was delivered in two large boxes. One box contains all of the pieces that make up the frame of the greenhouse (it’s really heavy!) and the other box contains all of the window panels.

Tips on building your greenhouse

The instructions recommend two people be present to build the greenhouse and I 100% agree. It’s not so much because the pieces are ‘heavy’ or anything, because they’re not. It’s more because you need two pairs of hands to hold things in place whilst things are being secured down.

There are also lots of different but similar looking pieces and I recommend sorting them by code numbers (they’re all labelled) so that when it comes to finding them, they’re all in order.

The instructions are really clear, however there’s a lot to take in with lots of detail on every page. Make sure you check everything properly to save you going back and redoing certain steps. For me, my two biggest mishaps were 1) putting the bolt & nut together the wrong way around and 2) putting the pieces together back to front. If I read the instructions more carefully, we would definitely save a bit of time! But I was sooo excited I couldn’t help but skip ahead all the time.

In terms of building, I would recommend choosing a two days in a row where there is no rain forecast, and also more importantly, no wind forecast. Whilst it might be possible to complete this in one day (if say, it’s summer and the daylight hours are hella long), I think realistically, you want two full days to complete this comfortably without rushing. And if your greenhouse is only half built, you don’t want to come back after a windy evening to find things on the ground or anything. I personally never considered the weather forecast when building our greenhouse but realised after Day #1 that we were really lucky that there was no bad weather forecast as we weren’t finished with it yet.

When building, anchor the base of the greenhouse down to the foundation as soon as possible and make sure everything is extremely level and square. This helps ensure a smoother building process, and ensures that all pieces will slot in beautifully and comfortably. We spent a lot of time making sure everything was square and level and I’m glad we did.

Before & After

Here’s a before and after of our space! The greenhouse design we chose ended up being the perfect fit for our space. It’s got crystal clear polycarbonate wall panels that are lightweight but sturdy. The roof panels are twin wall polycarbonate which gently diffuse the sunlight inside. It’s got a roof vent/window as well which is perfect for circulating air especially when it’s a hot day. It’s already withstood a couple of windy days here in Melbourne and has held up great. I literally can’t wait for our gardening adventures with our new greenhouse. Thank you so much Maze Products for making our greenhouse dreams come true!

Now, it’s time to deck out the inside and get started on our spring/summer seed-raising - can’t wait! Stay tuned for a tour inside our greenhouse when it’s all set up soon!