What are Greenhouses?

A greenhouse is a structure in which plants are grown. It can be large or small and constructed out of various materials, such as glass, plastic, or aluminum. Greenhouses heat up by absorbing and retaining visible sunlight.

During the 13th century, greenhouses (called botanical gardens) were built in Italy to house the plants explorers brought back from the tropics. Charles Lucien Bonaparte, a French botanist and nephew of Napoléon Bonaparte, is credited with building the first modern greenhouse in Holland in the 1800s to grow medicinal tropical plants.