Repairing old wooden greenhouse

Hi, with our new house we have inherited an old wooden greenhouse which has seen better days. I'm looking for advice on how best to treat the wood - it appears abit soft in places but not too rotten and as this good weather has dried it out nicely I thought it a good time to treat the wood. It also appears to have silicon arouns some of the panes - should I also replace this to keep it watertight?

Thanks for all help

A trip to your local Homebase/B&Q should furnish you with materials to repair your greenhouse.I have repaired sheds which others have cast aside as being past it yet they are still giving stirling service. To repair the soft wood I believe Cuprinol have a product which when applied to the wood hardens it. If the silicone is sound, leave it well alone. If any is coming away, apply more. To finish the wood off, apply Cuprinol 'Garden Shades' available in a number of colours. All my sheds are in 'Somerset Green' a nice dark shade. This covers better than any other product I've tried and the brushes wash out in water, always a bonus, and the finish will repell rainwater.

Check and double check that any wood finish you use is OK with plants.  In the past we have used linseed oil to preserve the wood inside an old Alton.  Totally non-toxic to plants and humans.

If youv'e the time to spare it might be best to take it to pieces and check each panel for rot.  We bought a second hand Alton greenhouse last year which looked immaculate until we got the panels home.  The first place to go is usually the bottom edge of panels and the timbers which rest on your concrete supports if you have any.  We used the cuprinol system to repair our panels, cutting out all signs of rot and refilling.  It was a long and messy job but we are now the proud owners of a fantastic greenhouse which looks far newer than the 20 years old it actually is.