How to buy the best staging, shelves and benches for your greenhouse, fully illustrated with pictures.

 

   

Is Greenhouse Staging Necessary?
Some form of benches, shelves and/or staging is essential for all sorts of tasks. From potting to simply providing an area to support growing plants it's a necessity.

Staging needs to be strong and capable of supporting the heavy weight of pots laden with plants and moisture. They also need to be resistant to water damage and daily wear and tear.

What Type of Greenhouse Staging?
The traditional solution for greenhouse staging is a free-standing bench of slatted wood. Sizes vary to a great degree, but a good compromise for a small to medium sized greenhouse is a bench about 30inch (75cm) high by about 2ft 3in wide. This size of staging will be a good working height and will also allow easy access inside the greenhouse. The slats should be 4in (10cm) wide with 1in (2.5cm) between slats. An additional lower shelf is a good idea for storing pots, tools and compost.

The wood should be good quality especially to resist water damage - different types of cedar are often used to provide a long low-maintenance life. These types of greenhouse staging are attractive to look at and will provide years of service.

Their disadvantages are that wooden greenhouse staging is heavy to move, they require occasional maintenance and are not completely water-proof. This last fact may be important if you intend to place capillary matting on them - aluminium is far more suitable for this purpose.

Aluminium greenhouse staging, shelves and benches are more popular than wood nowadays for many reasons. They are long lasting, require no maintenance and are light and portable. They only lack good looks, but even that is a subjective opinion. 

Aluminium staging come in many forms. The picture on the left shows conventional staging made from aluminium. It is sturdy and water-proof and the shelves can either be flat or incorporate ready made trays for growing seedlings. The flat shelves have the advantage that capillary matting can be placed on them without any damage.

If you wish to buy greenhouse staging online, we can recommend Harrod Horticultural. They manufacture their own greenhouse staging to very high standards. Click here for more detailed information.

Many garden greenhouse manufacturers produce staging and shelf equipment specially made for particular greenhouses. Often these can be attached to the greenhouse itself with no need for leg supports. This frees up the are under the shelves for other uses.

An example of a common attachment method is shown on the right (click to enlarge) which is common to many greenhouses. The height of the aluminium shelf can be quickly and easily adjusted. These free-standing aluminium greenhouse staging and benches come in a variety of colours and finishes.

Three more types of aluminium staging, and bench solutions are pictured below to give you ideas about which is best for your needs. Click on any picture to enlarge and see it more clearly.

A special purpose greenhouse staging, called a capillary bench, is also widely available. This bench has a surface with edges raised a couple of inches (5cm). The surface is lined with capillary matting which goes over the side of the bench into a vat of water. The capillary matting will suck up the water and remain damp at all times. Pots placed on the surface of the capillary matting will then suck up the water and remain automatically watered. Our recommendation for a supplier of this type of equipment is Harrod Horticultural. Click here to view their high quality capillary benching.

This is very useful at any time of the year because the potted plants will remain evenly watered. It is especially useful if you plan to leave the plants uncared for whilst you go on holidays. Add some liquid fertiliser to the water vat and the plants will be automatically fed and watered.

 

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