The Glasshouses

There are several glasshouses within the Gardens at Holehird.  Some are used mainly for display and are open to visitors, while others are used for propagation only.

The main Alpine Display house was built in 2000 to display plants that are difficult or impossible to grow outside in the Lake District.  Low temperatures are not usually a problem for these plants but they do need protection from excessively wet conditions in winter.  Plants are propagated and nurtured by a keen team of Alpine gardeners who have amassed a collection of more than 500 species from which a regularly changing selection is made for display in the Alpine house.

The Tufa House was originally a Victorian 'pit' house which has been converted by the LHS into a permanently-planted display house including large cushions of Dianthus, Draba and Helichrysum, and cascades of Saxifraga and Verbascum.

In Back Lane, behind the Walled Garden, are two propagating greenhouses which visitors may walk through when volunteers are not working in there.  The older one, the Victorian Pit House, was refurbished in 1999, carefully preserving the old Victorian curve-ended glass panes.  Fuchsias are grown in this house.  Adjacent to it is the larger Cambridge greenhouse, a more modern automatically heated and ventilated structure.  This is where much of the bedding plant propagation takes place, including half-hardy species and hybrid pelargoniums, osteospermums and argyranthemums, as well as penstemons and herbs.  Some of these plants are used in the Gardens while others are produced for the Plant Sales Area.