A new project has developed at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Alnarp during the spring of 2006. The garden design students has, during the course Interior Garden Design designed and built an construction with a new range of plants for Swedish Conservatories. The plants are mainly from the cool temperate areas, instead of the tropical which often are the most common in public spaces. This means, among other things, that the cost for warming is very low. The working process and the construction carried on as workshops in the conservatory at Trädgårdslaboratoriet in Alnarp. During a few weeks the hole construction is completed.

Present essay aims to introduce the reader to central topics regarding Rhododendrons of subgenus Vireya. As a result of a donation, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, received a collection of Vireya from a local amateur grower, Kurt Myllenberg. Since the subgenus Vireya is uncommon in Scandinavian horticulture, the study tries to establish conditions for successful growing. The subgenus Vireya differ from the other Rhododendron species through mainly three characteristics: the presence of two tails, attached to each end of the seed; the ovary-style junction is tapering and the pedicels arises directly from a dome-like base and form an umbel and not a raceme. The subgenus is distributed mostly in the islands of Indonesia and New Guinea, but also from Malaysia to Nepal and in Australia. Since Vireya species mainly grows as epiphytes in the tree canopies, they need high drainage and not too much water.

The purpose of this of this essay is to explore the construction of a conservatory that is livable allyear around. When you build a conservatory there are several factors that need to be regardedthat usually are of no importance when you build a regular conservatory. The glassed facadeneeds to have a very good U-value and all the parts of the facade need to be isolated and theconstruction needs to prevent thermal bridges.In this essay we will start by looking at the shape of the conservatory. Due to the façade consistsof glass the conservatory will need to have a good ratio between the area and the façade so thatthe heat losses will be at a minimum. However, due to the fact that one of the sides of the façadeis connected to the warm house, you quickly realize that the shape of the conservatory is of noimportance.There are two common ways to build a foundation for a conservatory, a molded concretefoundation and isolated wooden beams.