Hartley Botanic brings handmade luxury greenhouses from England to Atlanta.
Several key elements comprise a traditional English garden: hardscape pathways, colorful perennials and annuals, entryways with picket fences and, often, a glass greenhouse full of delicate flowers and delicious fruits and vegetables. If you’re ready to bring the latter to your outdoor living space, then you are in luck. Hartley Botanic, an England-based manufacturer of premium aluminum greenhouses, offers its handmade products throughout Buckhead and beyond, allowing local residents to create the perfect space in their own backyards for cultivating a green thumb regardless of the weather. Here, Neal Bobrick, president of Hartley Botanic Inc. in the United States, shares his insights about the process of installing a greenhouse and what it can bring to your home and life.
Why have greenhouses become popular in recent years?
The greenhouse growing culture is in its infancy here in the U.S., but our business is expanding because of several trends, including a focus on growing your own food and eating organic. Also, because more greenhouses are out there, people are being exposed to something they didn’t realize they could have. When they see today’s greenhouses, they often want one.
What are the benefits of having a greenhouse?
A greenhouse allows you to grow what you want to grow year-round. Growing is all about the temperature, climate and conditions. A greenhouse lets you create whatever conditions you want inside of it and grow throughout the year despite the weather. For instance, in some climates, you can’t grow tomatoes all year long. But if you have a greenhouse and heat it properly, you can grow them at any time.
The same goes for orchids, tropical plants and other beautiful greenery.
What goes into the process of installing a greenhouse?
If you have the land that can accommodate a structure as small as 8 feet wide and 12 feet long and the proper building permits, then a greenhouse is certainly an option. You have to start by building a foundation; many people use poured concrete or a concrete block with a brick, stone or stucco veneer. That is handled by a homeowner with the help of a contractor who can also add plumbing, heating and whatever features you decide to include. Then we come in and install the Hartley Botanic greenhouse that sits on top of that structure. We provide very specific drawings and measurements for the greenhouse, which is constructed at our factory in England, overwrapped to protect it from damage, shipped by boat to the U.S., trucked to its destination and installed by one of our employees.
What options are available through Hartley Botanic?
We have three greenhouse ranges: Victorian, Heritage and Modern. The Victorian is the most popular in the U.S. It is a very traditional, English-looking structure with a robust aluminum frame and slender glass paneling, which was a trademark of the Victorian era. The Heritage offers lower-priced options with thinner aluminum frames. The Modern features designs that are streamlined and contemporary. Our sales executive can walk you through the process of purchasing the right one for the amount of land you have available and the price you want to pay. Regardless of which range you choose, the fundamental features, including the individual pieces of 4 millimeter tempered safety glass and the 30-year lifetime warranty, remain the same.
What are the biggest benefits of installing a greenhouse?
Life can get stressful, and gardening can be very relaxing. If I personally can garden year-round, plant vegetables and watch them bud and grow (my favorite is tomatoes), that is relaxing to me. If you enjoy something, but you can’t do it all the time, how can you find a way to do it whenever you want to? That’s what Hartley brings.
HARTLEY BOTANIC
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