Heavy snow caused a greenhouse to cave in at a garden centre in Morinville.
Last Monday, Debbie Foisy, owner of Deb’s Greenhouse, discovered the structure of their older greenhouse had collapsed, buckling underneath the weight of accumulated snow and high winds.
“Last year we had a really big flood here ... so we got all that fixed, and then when I saw this and I’m like, ‘Can we just catch a break?’” Foisy said.
The greenhouse was around 10 years old and provided 1,600 square feet of space. It was used to store equipment and plants in a cooler setting during the spring. The other two, larger greenhouses on the property were recently built and could support the buildup of snow, she said.
“The good thing is it was never a greenhouse that customers went into.”
Snow would need to be cleared a few times over the winter months to keep the weight off the greenhouse rooves, but the job is difficult to do without using larger equipment, she said.
Originally the plan was to have the greenhouse demolished and replaced this summer, as the garden centre needed the space in April.
With the greenhouse taking “an early retirement,” the work will have to happen much sooner. Now Foisy said she’s waiting on quotes and building permits for the new greenhouse.
“Because I was going to take it down, I don’t think the deductible would really even cover the cost of replacing this old thing,” she said.
“Thankfully (demolishing the greenhouse) was in the plan for this year. I mean, it’s still sticker shock, but it was anticipated. I just didn’t think it would collapse, I thought I would get one more year.”
If plans for a new build aren’t finished in time, Foisy said she’s seen other growers who've faced this issue scramble for space by building miniature cold frames with plastic over top to store plants needing lower temperatures.
“If I had to build an extra set of shelves in here, I could do that. There are ways I could squeak in some more space, but ideally, I could just go ahead with the build that was set for the summer.”
Even though the structure is not salvageable, the new furnace in the greenhouse was undamaged and recovered.
If customers want to lend a hand, Foisy said buying pansies earlier this year instead of at the end of April would help clear some of their inventory.
“They’re just so hardy and so tough, if they want to pick them up earlier than they’re used to, that would save us a lot of the space that we lost.”
Nathan Coehoorn, director of operations with construction company Tanc Developments, said the company sees a variety of calls throughout the year for greenhouse repair and maintenance. Full-on collapses are rarer – but they do happen.
High winds, snow and the structure's age all play a factor, he said. Installing wind walls on the side of the older greenhouses can help, or leaving the furnace on during the winter months can melt accumulating snow.
"Sometimes the snow will pile up in the gutters because the heat isn't on in the greenhouse, and then it's not melting off," Coehoorn said.
Larger growers are more often choosing to build their greenhouses out of glass with larger steel beams and concrete foundations, he said. But for smaller, more seasonal growers, taking off the plastic covering over the roof in the winter to let the snow fall on the ground can keep some of the weight off as well.
