Redefining Greenhouse
December 17th, 2009 · by Bill Hole
Greenhouse space is a big challenge in the garden centre industry. You need thousands of square feet for growing and selling plants in the spring, but for the rest of the year most of that square footage becomes surplus space. Traditionally, garden centres simply can’t repurpose their greenhouses because of physical limitations, which is the case at our current location.
So, when we initiated the Enjoy Centre, we began with the idea that for the eight months of the year when we weren’t growing a crop our greenhouse would be home to events such as conventions, trade shows, weddings and other celebrations. It meant needing to design a space that would allow our retail greenhouse to be used for more than selling plants. Of course, that’s added significantly to the cost, but the result is a magnificent design that’s aesthetically pleasing as well as practical.
It does, however, create a new challenge: explaining how our new greenhouse is different. It’s a bit like comparing apples to oranges. Yes, both our old facility and the Enjoy Centre are greenhouses, but they’re so distinctive it’s almost unfair to compare them.
The merits of building a greenhouse so it doesn’t always have to be a greenhouse have always been evident to us. And once you see it, we know you’ll agree.