There are many great reasons to add a stylish hardwood orangery to your home; it will provide extra space inside, give you a lovely sun trap for the summer months, provide a fine space to entertain guests and also somewhere to grow interesting fruit and veg, be it oranges or something else.
In fact, the latter use may be more significant than some think. The environment is never out of the news, be it the regular protests by eco-warriors gluing themselves to roads or dire warnings about the perils faced by the planet, such as those delivered at the start of the COP27 summit in Egypt by UN secretary general Antonio Gutteres.
For all the talk of government action, targets and quotas regarding fossil fuels and much else, some of the solution may lie in a more simple action everyone can get involved in – growing more of our food at home. As well as reducing the emissions involved in importing goods, it can also increase food security by ensuring higher levels of domestic food production.
This point has been made by someone who knows a thing or two about growing plants under glass – the Eden Project’s founder Sir Tim Smit. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph he predicted a “revolution” in favour of more local control of food production.
Sir Tim said that the kind of crops currently grown around the world tend to be “addicted to fossil fuel inputs, in fertilisation and pesticides.
“But if you’ve got unlimited renewables you can grow under glass whatever it is you want, wherever you are.”
Of course, this kind of development may be focused chiefly on large greenhouses, but, just as people can use allotments now to grow more of their own food, so an orangery can create a microclimate that enables things that would not cope with the UK climate outdoors to flourish.
Your orangery can’t solve the world’s food supply issues and climate problems on its own, but it can be part of the solution.