Glass Gardens in Winterfell

[Winds of Winter blow cold]

1 hour ago, Ckram said:

What would happen if winters in the North are dark like in the polar circles (polar night)?

We know that the "Long Night" is how they call the longest winter ever but that doesn't mean that shorter winters are sunny.

It seems more likely. The closest description we have:

• aDwD - The Prince of Winterfell

It was warmer in the godswood, strange to say. Beyond its confines, a hard white frost gripped Winterfell. The paths were treacherous with black ice, and hoarfrost sparkled in the moonlight on the broken panes of the Glass Gardens. Drifts of dirty snow had piled up against the walls, filling every nook and corner. Some were so high they hid the doors behind them. Under the snow lay grey ash and cinders, and here and there a blackened beam or a pile of bones adorned with scraps of skin and hair. Icicles long as lances hung from the battlements and fringed the towers like an old man's stiff white whiskers. But inside the godswood, the ground remained unfrozen, and steam rose off the hot pools, as warm as baby's breath.

However, It's not clear if he's looking up or down.

A guy on reddit said that "glass of any color would impact the growth of the plants, and if they still can grow, it would still affect their nutritional value". Is that so?

In Jr. High I did an experiment with plants covered by 3 different colors of cellophane, they were planted at the same time & given the same amount of light, but some grew taller & were darker in color that the others.

[Ckram]

@Winds of Winter blow cold

Oh, plant phototropism. I'll dig in to that. Thank you.

[Jak Scaletongue]

3 hours ago, Ckram said:

What would happen if winters in the North are dark like in the polar circles (polar night)?

We know that the "Long Night" is how they call the longest winter ever but that doesn't mean that shorter winters are sunny.

 

A guy on reddit said that "glass of any color would impact the growth of the plants, and if they still can grow, it would still affect their nutritional value". Is that so?

I'm basing my assumption purely on my personal opinion that IF it got always-dark as far south as Winterfell then Old Nan wouldn't have emphasized *how* dark it was during the Long Night. I've no doubt the Thenns up in their valley likely had to deal with polar night, but it seems to me that Winterfell is too far south of the "arctic circle" of Planetos to experience polar nights. 

IRL the polar night is solely reliant on the axis of the planet but not knowing whether the magic creating the weird seasons is magic affecting the axis of the planet and keeps the planet stuck in "winter" axis for too long (and again at summer) or if the planet continues on a earth-like axis and the magic makes the seasons super long regardless of which way the planet is pointing. If it's the latter, then they'd only have to worry about it for 6 mons at a time for 5 years (half darker, half sunnier; like IRL summer/winter but magic f'ed it up). If it's the former....well, I'm surprised they've made it this long then. 3-7 years of perpetual darkness every...well, 3-7years, I guess! (Please don't quote me on that...I math as bad as GRRM! But this last summer was extra long at 10 years, so 3-7 would be a decent average for a godawful climate system, right?). I don't see what good glasshouses would to grow food if it's going to be dark when you need it the most.

As for the glass - slight discolouration probably wouldn't affect it too badly. Haven't googled it yet but at this point I'd guess that low nutrition veggies and whatnot is better than no nutrition and will certainly do some small part, even if it's diminished, of preventing both starvation and diseases like scurvy. Old Sprite bottle green is probably going way too far, even if the glass is thinner but slightly greenish, mostly clear glass would be sufficient. 

[Joey Crows]

9 hours ago, Coolbeard the Exile said:

Do you have that quote by chance?

Bah! Can't find the quote right this second. But Jon definitely thinks about potentially creating glass gardens at the wall. If only they could afford to hire Myrish glass blowers to come over and train some of the men of the Watch in their arts. 

[Coolbeard the Exile]

4 hours ago, Joey Crows said:

Bah! Can't find the quote right this second. But Jon definitely thinks about potentially creating glass gardens at the wall. If only they could afford to hire Myrish glass blowers to come over and train some of the men of the Watch in their arts. 

I remember that aswell now.

[zandru]

I'm thinking the nutritional value of the vegs and fruits would mostly depend on the soil and fertilizer, not the spectrum of light the plants were exposed to. Assuming they're exposed to light... Can plants grow by firelight?

[White Ravens]

17 hours ago, zandru said:

Right! The glass gardens could likely be at ground level or not too high, in order to take the best advantage of the geothermal heat (I don't subscribe to the "buried dragon" theory). In winter, the snow would cover the walls all the way up. Glass on the sides would be wasted, and would cut back severely on insulation from the cold. Best to have the traditional stone walls, with a glass roof. Probably slanted at a very high angle to shed the snow (think A-frame construction, which was used in high snow areas here on regular Earth.) The slanted roof would, of course, face south.

The walls of the glass gardens are not just stone.  They are stone with hot spring water circulating through them.

[White Ravens]

We know that the the glass gardens were productive for Winterfell.  Bran mentions an old man who gave him blackberries grown there.  The story about Bael the Bard mentions that blue roses were grown there.  Cook's are described as tending vegetables there.  We can speculate about whether clear glass or coloured glass would provide better nutrition, or whether it was too dark to grow vegetables in winter as if Winterfell existed here on this earth.  But the glass gardens at Winterfell worked and they had walls heated with circulating hot springwater and they had a green and yellow glass roof.

 

Quote

A CLASH OF KINGS - BRAN VII

The green and yellow panes of the glass gardens were all in shards, the trees and fruits and flowers torn up or left exposed to die.

Edit:  Any users of the A Search of Ice and Fire website here?  It works on my iPod but not on my Windows 10 computer.  Any suggestions for getting it to work?

[Ckram]

17 hours ago, Jak Scaletongue said:

I'm basing my assumption purely on my personal opinion that IF it got always-dark as far south as Winterfell then Old Nan wouldn't have emphasized *how* dark it was during the Long Night. I've no doubt the Thenns up in their valley likely had to deal with polar night, but it seems to me that Winterfell is too far south of the "arctic circle" of Planetos to experience polar nights. 

I would like to agree with you that Winterfell is too far south of a hypothetical artic circle but IMHO the climatology of ASOIAF's world doesn't give much room for such conclusions.

15 hours ago, Joey Crows said:

Bah! Can't find the quote right this second. But Jon definitely thinks about potentially creating glass gardens at the wall. If only they could afford to hire Myrish glass blowers to come over and train some of the men of the Watch in their arts. 

• Jon VII, aDwD

They rode the winch lift back to the ground. The wind was gusting, cold as the breath of the ice dragon in the tales Old Nan had told when Jon was a boy. The heavy cage was swaying. From time to time it scraped against the Wall, starting small crystalline showers of ice that sparkled in the sunlight as they fell, like shards of broken glass.

Glass, Jon mused, might be of use here. Castle Black needs its own glass gardens, like the ones at Winterfell. We could grow vegetables even in the deep of winter. The best glass came from Myr, but a good clear pane was worth its weight in spice, and green and yellow glass would not work as well. What we need is gold. With enough coin, we could buy 'prentice glassblowers and glaziers in Myr, bring them north, offer them their freedom for teaching their art to some of our recruits. That would be the way to go about it. If we had the gold. Which we do not.

8 hours ago, zandru said:

Can plants grow by firelight?

I read something on the internet that said it could but a huge and bright fire would be needed. Not sure if it's accurate, though.

5 hours ago, White Ravens said:

We can speculate about whether clear glass or coloured glass would provide better nutrition, or whether it was too dark to grow vegetables in winter as if Winterfell existed here on this earth.  But the glass gardens at Winterfell worked and they had walls heated with circulating hot springwater and they had a green and yellow glass roof.

Well, the question here is not to ask if it worked but how efficiently.

It is now destroyed but we have reasons to believe that it isn't the only greenhouse in the North.

[White Ravens]

25 minutes ago, Ckram said:

Well, the question here is not to ask if it worked but how efficiently.

It is now destroyed but we have reasons to believe that it isn't the only greenhouse in the North.

Based on what has been discussed so far I would agree that anyone in the North could potentially build a greenhouse with cost being a very limiting factor over how many lords can afford to do it.  But the fact that the glass gardens of Winterfell also have walls heated with hot springwater suggests that they might be especially effective for growing things.  They still need sun for photosynthesis but the heat would be very helpful.

[Jak Scaletongue]

22 minutes ago, Ckram said:

I would like to agree with you that Winterfell is too far south of a hypothetical artic circle but IMHO the climatology of ASOIAF's world doesn't give much room for such conclusions.

• Jon VII, aDwD

They rode the winch lift back to the ground. The wind was gusting, cold as the breath of the ice dragon in the tales Old Nan had told when Jon was a boy. The heavy cage was swaying. From time to time it scraped against the Wall, starting small crystalline showers of ice that sparkled in the sunlight as they fell, like shards of broken glass.

Glass, Jon mused, might be of use here. Castle Black needs its own glass gardens, like the ones at Winterfell. We could grow vegetables even in the deep of winter. The best glass came from Myr, but a good clear pane was worth its weight in spice, and green and yellow glass would not work as well. What we need is gold. With enough coin, we could buy 'prentice glassblowers and glaziers in Myr, bring them north, offer them their freedom for teaching their art to some of our recruits. That would be the way to go about it. If we had the gold. Which we do not.

I read something on the internet that said it could but a huge and bright fire would be needed. Not sure if it's accurate, though.

Well, the question here is not to ask if it worked but how efficiently.

It is now destroyed but we have reasons to believe that it isn't the only greenhouse in the North.

I've gotta go make supper, so this is gonna be short!

1) the angle of the planet in relation to the sun is what's going to affect the day/night cycle, not the climate. Climatology and the axis/orbit of a planet, while intertwined, are not the same thing. If the planet maintains a regular earth-like orbit and axis while the magic messes with the climate then they'd only get a few months at a time of complete darkness and a few months of complete daylight to counter it. If the axis/orbit is messed up then we might see winters of complete darkness, but that would imply the climate and weather is "normal" in that it's reacting to the axis/orbit of the planet like it does on Earth. It being both axis/orbit *and* climate is unnecessary though, except to add more "oomph" to the magic aspect of it. 

2) the underlined bit after the part you bolded in the quote: Jon seems pretty certain all he needs is glass for a glasshouse to grow veggies at the Wall in deep winter. No additional light source, not even hot springs (though maybe that's why Castle Black doesn't already have a glass garden?). 

 

I dunno. Between Old Nan emphasising the darkness of the Long Night and most relevant characters seeming quite confident that the glass gardens are useful, helpful, and worth the expense suggests to me that complete darkness is uncommon and likely the result of massive storms blocking the sun rather than the sun not rising a la polar nights. 

[White Ravens]

29 minutes ago, Jak Scaletongue said:

 

I dunno. Between Old Nan emphasising the darkness of the Long Night and most relevant characters seeming quite confident that the glass gardens are useful, helpful, and worth the expense suggests to me that complete darkness is uncommon and likely the result of massive storms blocking the sun rather than the sun not rising a la polar nights. 

I agree.  It suggests that the darkness of the long night was not associated with the tilt of the earths axis as we would see for part of the winter above the arctic circle but rather was caused by something unrelated such as the nuclear winter scenarios discussed in LML's mythical astronomy mega discussions and brought about by dust and debris spewed into the upper atmosphere by a massive asteroid impacting the planet.

[Jak Scaletongue]

5 minutes ago, White Ravens said:

I agree.  It suggests that the darkness of the long night was not associated with the tilt of the earths axis as we would see for part of the winter above the arctic circle but rather was caused by something unrelated such as the nuclear winter scenarios discussed in LML's mythical astronomy mega discussions and brought about by dust and debris spewed into the upper atmosphere by a massive asteroid impacting the planet.

I was just thinking about the average winter, where a bad storm might block the sunlight for a few days/week, not drastically impacting the growth of foodstuffs (it might stunt them, but as long as they're edible and more nutritious than boiled leather they'll do their job!). But yeah, I definitely think the Long Night was more "stuff blocked sun" rather than "sun didn't rise"also. 

[White Ravens]

1 minute ago, Jak Scaletongue said:

I was just thinking about the average winter, where a bad storm might block the sunlight for a few days/week, not drastically impacting the growth of foodstuffs (it might stunt them, but as long as they're edible and more nutritious than boiled leather they'll do their job!). But yeah, I definitely think the Long Night was more "stuff blocked sun" rather than "sun didn't rise"also. 

I agree with that too.  Long periods of cloudy and overcast weather don't prevent plants from getting enough light to grow but full sun really makes a difference for ripening fruits and vegetables.

[TheSeer27]

Appreciate the comments guys definitely interesting subject!

[Ckram]

5 hours ago, Jak Scaletongue said:

1) the angle of the planet in relation to the sun is what's going to affect the day/night cycle, not the climate. Climatology and the axis/orbit of a planet, while intertwined, are not the same thing. If the planet maintains a regular earth-like orbit and axis while the magic messes with the climate then they'd only get a few months at a time of complete darkness and a few months of complete daylight to counter it. If the axis/orbit is messed up then we might see winters of complete darkness, but that would imply the climate and weather is "normal" in that it's reacting to the axis/orbit of the planet like it does on Earth. It being both axis/orbit *and* climate is unnecessary though, except to add more "oomph" to the magic aspect of it. 

It seems to me that the summers would also have a period of some darkness if the planet had a regular earth-like axis and orbit. Am I wrong?

A winter with complete darkness would depend on the angle of the tilt of the planet's axis toward the southern tropics, do not you think? Less accentuated tilts would bring darkness to only a few regions.

According to Wikipedia, the Astronomical Polar Night (the most pronounced darkness caused by the tilt of the planet's axis - when the center of the Sun is no more than 18° below the horizon) "is limited to latitudes above 84°34', which is exactly 18° within the polar circle, or five and a half degrees from the pole".

But that sound too complicated to be the correct answer though since GGRM said that the explanation for the seasons is going to be "a fantasy (as opposed to a science fiction/science based) answer".

6 hours ago, Jak Scaletongue said:

I dunno. Between Old Nan emphasising the darkness of the Long Night and most relevant characters seeming quite confident that the glass gardens are useful, helpful, and worth the expense suggests to me that complete darkness is uncommon and likely the result of massive storms blocking the sun rather than the sun not rising a la polar nights. 

The problem I see is that this would be the first winter of Jon Snow's life and Old Nan is just telling a story from very ancient times, much like our "Great Flood" myths. They know nothing (especially Jon).

6 hours ago, White Ravens said:

Long periods of cloudy and overcast weather don't prevent plants from getting enough light to grow but full sun really makes a difference for ripening fruits and vegetables.

Maybe that's the difference between regular Westeros' winters and the Long Night: no sun and no food.

[White Ravens]

5 hours ago, Ckram said:

It seems to me that the summers would also have a period of some darkness if the planet had a regular earth-like axis and orbit. Am I wrong?

A winter with complete darkness would depend on the angle of the tilt of the planet's axis toward the southern tropics, do not you think? Less accentuated tilts would bring darkness to only a few regions.

According to Wikipedia, the Astronomical Polar Night (the most pronounced darkness caused by the tilt of the planet's axis - when the center of the Sun is no more than 18° below the horizon) "is limited to latitudes above 84°34', which is exactly 18° within the polar circle, or five and a half degrees from the pole".

But that sound too complicated to be the correct answer though since GGRM said that the explanation for the seasons is going to be "a fantasy (as opposed to a science fiction/science based) answer".

The problem I see is that this would be the first winter of Jon Snow's life and Old Nan is just telling a story from very ancient times, much like our "Great Flood" myths. They know nothing (especially Jon).

Maybe that's the difference between regular Westeros' winters and the Long Night: no sun and no food.

It's good that we have GRRM on record saying that the explanation for the long and irregular seasons is magical because you can't explain it by comparing our own annual seasonal changes. 

[Lollygag]

Plants do have light spectrum requirements for growth and reproduction. Curious that the glass is yellow and green, when rl plants find blue and red lights the most useful. Indoor plant grow lights are typically blue and/or red, if they’re not full spectrum. (Do a search on “plant grow lights” for pics)

http://www.wikihow.com/Grow-Houseplants-With-Grow-Lights

On the Long Night, it’s believable to me that Westeros didn’t go completely dark. I live in a cloudy, cold, northern climate, and a month or two of consecutive days of no direct sun on top of the very short days really affects people. Old Nan’s description of the dark of the Long Night is consistent with how reduced light over a long period of time seems to mess people up. But if the Long Night is only mostly dark, rather than fully dark, then that may really impact the Others’ movement.

Given the massive amounts of snow that the north gets in the winter, a glass roof would have to be steeply pitched to shed the weight and the panels would have to be fairly small. Snow is extremely heavy, and if it's wet and sticky enough, even a pitched roof would have trouble shedding the snow. Heavy snowfalls which don’t melt off quickly collapse roofs on RL buildings, so factor in the much heavier snowfall in northern Westeros, the snow lasting a longer period of time thus putting weight on the building for longer periods of time, their lack of technology, glass roofs being fragile, and I can’t see how a greenhouse is even possible. Actually, I’m inclined to think that NO glass could support the snow from an average Westerosi winter, unless there’s  some sort of a glass equivalent to Valeryian steel.

The hot springs might be the difference and a way to melt the snow, so the only successful greenhouse might be in Winterfell.

The SSM specifies that they try to have greenhouses. Maybe it’s just the hot springs making the difference, but I think there might be some magic involved here.  Also, hot glass is known to break if it comes in contact with cold.

“And some of the great lords try and maintain greenhouses to provide for their own castles... the "glass gardens" of Winterfell are referred to several times.”

 

[Ckram]

6 hours ago, Lollygag said:

But if the Long Night is only mostly dark, rather than fully dark, then that may really impact the Others’ movement.

How so?

6 hours ago, Lollygag said:

The hot springs might be the difference and a way to melt the snow, so the only successful greenhouse might be in Winterfell.

During winter, maybe.

[Lollygag]

1 hour ago, Ckram said:

How so?

ADWD Jon XII (Tormund speaking)

The wildling rubbed his mouth. "Not here," he mumbled, "not this side o' your Wall." The old man glanced uneasily toward the trees in their white mantles. "They're never far, you know. They won't come out by day, not when that old sun's shining, but don't think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don't see them, but they're always clinging to your heels."

A Long Night that's not always fully dark will still grant a break from the Others during times with even very limited sun.