Theoretically it sounds fine. There are quite a few rainforest plants that would take cold conditions as well. You would not need to have the humidity up too high if it was a problem. Whilst high humidity is an advantage, the microclimate does not have to be all that damp. Once the plants are established they can take a fair bit of dry especially in the winter months.

There are lots of ferns that would be fine, as well as shrubs such as Lilly-pillies, Uromyrtus 'Weeping Beauty', Archirhodomyrtus beckleri, native gardenias, etc. etc. that can be contained in a smaller space. Choose them from the colder areas of the sub-tropics such as the Atherton Tablelands and the hill-country of northern NSW. There is a rainforest nursery at Bobin in NSW (Dingo Creek Nursery) that would have semi-cold tolerant rainforest plants.

Put the conservatory on the north side of the house with an adjustable vent into the house, and you could halve your heating costs. I grow equatorial species in Melbourne in a house attached conservatory, without extra heat. I store the heat in 4 tonnes of water inside the greenhouse and syphon off warm air into the house on cold sunny days.

Kuranga would be more first and last stop for these sorts of plants. Also worth considering is 'Bushwalk' in Cranbourne, who have some of the more common species at better prices.

If I were in your position I would be growing the flavour myrtles (you'll need to prune them lots though), mountain pepper, dorrigo plum, maybe an australian lime and various other food plants. conservatory space is very expensive and you want to get as much value as possible out of it. I would also put a lime (kaffir or tahitian) in there for fruit.

Hi,

Robert and Nathan have probably summed it up, but I just wanted to say : go for it !!!

I think you've nailed it by saying that you want to get your plants out of the wind. I am convinced that the majority of stress isnt from heat or cold (barring the dramatic extremes of each season) - its wind. I envy the fact that you wont have to wait for your natural windbreak to grow and shelter your rainforest.

Cheers,

Artie

Thanks for those thoughts and suggestions.

The north-facing conservatory is attached to the house and doors can be opened to access the heat stored after dusk. Only potential problem is it was designed more as a heat loss tower (it rises 2m above the ceiling of the main house with adjustable louvre windows at this level so cross winds can take away heat in Summer). So convectional currents alone may not be that good in distributing the heat - perhaps we might install a quiet fan to force some heat through the house on these chilly nights if merely opening the doors is insufficient.

Appreciate very much the suggestions on plant species. Will check out the Victorian sites suggested - assume they also grow these in some form of conservatory. Personally, I really like the saprophytic ferns on tree branches but need to locate some medium trees (to 4-5m). Have found some sources - Established Tree Transplanters and Mature Tree Farms - problem is they grow temperate climate trees in Victoria and don't have mature trees from the warmer climes.

Some of the tree ferns (Dicksonia) will support saprophytic ferns. You could also just use logs as "stumps" to attach ferns to. Be careful that the trees you plant will give you plenty of time before they get too big in there. As a lot of rainforest stuff is grown in the northern states and shipped down, one of the bigger nurseries may order in specific shrubs for you.

taking heat out of a greenhouse at night sounds wrong to me. If you are serious about using the greenhouse for house heating you'd do a lot better to store the night heat inside in water in an insulated container. A good solution is to store the heat in your roof in plastic water pipes filled with water. Trying to store heat as objects at room temperature is completely impractical (do some numbers - cooling a kg of water 1C takes 4200J, i.e. the output of an electric radiator running for 2 seconds. You need to store the heat as hot water - say 40C)

I was wondering if any Queensland or NSW nurseries offer direct interstate delivery, rather than have to go through a local nursery.

Having lived in Brisbane for 2 years, I have seen very quick growing plants which I was hoping would grow into small 4-5m trees in the conservatory situation here. I would obviously have to prune and shape these carefully, so they don't get too tall. Choice of plant would clearly be crucial and any suggestions would be handy.

The conservatory we are building has a large glass wall (6m wide X 6 m tall) facing North. I'd imagine on a sunny Winter day, it could get quite warm in there (even on the south coast of Victoria) so there may be excess heat to share with the adjacent living area in the evening. But we wouldn't do this if the flora were to suffer from the heat loss. On the other hand, I know the place will overheat in Summer but I'm hoping the louvres at 5-6m will offer sufficient ventilation. Time will tell.

Justafarmer,

I know Fairhill Native Plants at Yandina on the Sunshine Coast Qld will deliver direct at least in SE Qld, because they have done that for me at quite reasonable cost. You could ask them if they are prepared to deliver to Victoria.

Cheers,
Frank

36m^2 vertical should be able to collect about 0.87* this area in mid winter (i.e. 0.866*36*10MJ/m^2 day = about 90kWh of heat on average). That's a lot. If you could save a little for a cloudy week each day you might not need a heater in your house at all.

You need to decide how important heating is against what sorts of plants you want to grow. It would be quite easy to heat your house 100% using the sun on a suitably designed conservatory:
http://www.ece.villanova.edu/~nick/solar/solar.html

Nick is hoping to come to visit Australia in winter (I'm currently organising this with the ATA.org.au) to get a workshop on exactly how to do this. Email me if you're interested (njh@njhurst.com). If you could find say 20 people in your area interested in solar heating and high performance cooling, Nick would be happy to visit your town and give a talk (he intends to give talks to anyone who'll listen for cost price - provide a venue and that could be $0).

Quick growing in brisbane does not equal quick growing in a greenhouse down here. I think it's due to the colder nights and the shorter days.

I put the roof and front wall on my greenhouse today, and boy am I looking forward to finishing it! I've already got a 3600L fish tank in there and water and electricity, just need walls, door, vents, drains and floor...

Nathan, I'll email you re: passive solar heating.

Will ring Fairhill next week re: delivery to Vic. Thanks Frank.

Here's a list of plants which are said to do well in low light levels, and might be happier in the short days of a Melbourne winter than some others. The asterisks mark the ones which are best at the low light thing. They are all rather undemanding about water, and grow well in "dry" rainforests, so score well on "waterwise" listings.
Acronychia oblongifolia
Alchornea ilicifolia
Alectryon tomentosus
Alyxia ruscifolia*
Arytera distylis
Auranticarpa rhombifolia
Baloghia inophylla
Canthium buxifolium
Cordyline species
Croton insularis
Cryptocarya microneura *
Elattostachys xylocarpa
Ficus coronata *
Ficus rubiginosa *
Flindersia species
Glochidion fernandi*
Harpullia species
Homalanthus nutans
Melicope micrococca
Neolitsea dealbata
Auranticarpa rhombifolia
Psychotria loniceroides *
Rapanea variabilis
Almost all of these are either small trees or shrubs. Ficus coronata is a non-strangling fig which is said have the best flavoured fruits of all the natives, as well as being small enough to grow in a suburban garden. F.rubiginosa is a small strangler - one of those things that is good in a pot and you can do arty things with the lovely snakey roots, but you wouldn't actually want it in the ground near any foundations. (I imagine all the potted figs would do really well in the situation you are proposing).
Best of luck. Trish.

Amazing. Thanks very much Trish - this is just the sort of recommendation I was looking for. Its been 10 years since we gardened in Brisbane and we have little recollection of the names of plants we liked. Now I can look these up and start to plan the conservatory here.
In case anyone wants a link for a pictorial web guide to these kinds of plants (little info on growing conditions, though, which is why this advice is so useful) here's the link:

Here is a link that might be useful: Brisbane Rainforest Action & Information Network