Hi. Whatever you get you'll need to heat it. Those greenhouses without a heater will just act as a cold frame in your zone. If all you are wanting to protect during the winter is the Theobroma cacao I'd just keep it inside with a high quality grow light and find a way to keep humidity up. Maybe tent it with something to hold the humidity in. I keep mine in a greenhouse almost year round. They need high humidity and filtered sunlight.

Thanks for your response karyn1.
I was going to use a heater, but I just wasn't sure about the greenhouses themselves, I mean they're not polycarbonate or glass, bust just a plastic of some sort. Would they be enough to hold in the humidity if I were to put a growing light over it?
What could you recommend for me to tent it with?
I'm new, I'm sorry for all the questions.
Thank you very much

Since plants can't read they don't always follow the rules - my Theobroma cacao goes outside in the shade all summer and lives indoors all winter beside a east facing window. I keep it damp but not soaking wet. The house has a dehumidifier on the HVAC system and doesn't allow the humidity to get over 50%. I don't use a grow light, I don't spritz it with water, I don't do anything special at all and my plant is over head high and starting to branch out. It is three years old (I got it as a 1 foot tall seedling and it might have been one year old at that time). I also erect a large hoophouse out in the garden where I stuff all my other tropical potted trees and use a small heater to keep it above freezing - out there I lost all the other chocolates I had. Only the one I bring indoors each winter has survived.

The only problem is that the leaves suffer with the low humidity level but they reflush with new growth sometime during the winter and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

The biggest problem I have seen with growing chocolate trees is the tiny root ball. You would think that a large tree would need a big pot but that is not the case - which makes these guys a perfect houseplant in my opinion. My tree is just over 6 feet tall with a trunk about an inch thick and the root ball is maybe the size of a grapefruit. So you need to support the tree with a sturdy stake otherwise they will fall over.

trianglejohn you have been very helpful, thank you.
I'm glad to know that growing this tree won't, hopefully, be such a pain. After hearing some stories I was pretty terrified of getting the tree because of all I heard. If I can bring it inside and out, then I should be fine.

The inside of my house doesn't get too cold and if anything I have a heater, I can keep the plant facing any direction since there are windows all over my house.

Maybe I won't be needing a greenhouse after all, and I can save some money.

I heard this plant needs well draining soil, can you tell me what kind of soil you have, or anything special I should prepare?

Thanks again.

Well, I think everyone should have a greenhouse... but you don't need one to grow a chocolate tree. Of all the tropical patio plants I have this one has been the most forgiving. It handles being shuttled inside and outside better than most.

I use just normal potting mix and slow release fertilizer. I make a lot of my own potting soil by mixing a bag of cheap top soil or potting media with a bag of "soil conditioner" sometimes offered as pine bark fines or triple shredded pine bark. This may be something that is only common in the southeast. As long as your mix is full of fiber you should be ok. A lot of tropicals want great drainage, meaning they don't want to sit in water. And they want to get rained on every day, so expect to water often but let the water drain away rather than sit in a basin under the pot.

You don't need to keep this tree super warm, some of the mountains down in the tropics where they commercially grow chocolate get mighty cold. I would keep it above 40 degrees but not anything above 75 - no need to unless you like a warm house in the winter. My plant is still outside and we've been down to 39 degrees this past week and it is doing just fine (but it does need to come in, one or two nights just below 40 won't hurt it).

Some people talk about their chocolates being sensitive to MiracleGrow, I have not had this problem but I slowed down on feeding mine because he was getting too tall for a houseplant. I like to use Osmocote or something similar. You might find a brand specific for tropical fruit trees. I think chocolates like to get tiny amounts of fertilizer in each watering rather than a big dose of stuff every once in a while.

Very few people can get their potted chocolates to bloom and set fruit. In fact, plenty of people that live in south Florida struggle to keep their chocolates happy, even some of the botanic gardens have problems getting fruit off of theirs - don't get your hopes up.

Seeds for this plant are sometimes available on ebay or at WholeFoods. They are easy to sprout and grow from seeds if you want to grow more of them.

Oh, I will get a Greenhouse in due time. I'm just going to save myself those $200 on a cheap one and wait until I can get a "real" one, I guess.

I'll probably end up keeping mine in my room. It gets about 70+ in the house and that's without the heat on, the coldest is probably in the 50s. It will get colder though, especially outside, and sometimes we get snow. In California it's extremely strange.

I'm not expecting fruit, although I'd love for it to happen of course, but I guess my expectations are pretty reasonable.

I'm kind of worried about humidity though, it's not very humid here and someone mentioned "tenting it" being a new gardener I don't really know what that means, especially if the plant is going to be inside. Can you explain?

I will take all of your tips in though.
Do you know anything about using coffee grounds on the plant? I have about 50lbs of it and I heard it was good but I'd like to know from experience.

Thank you!

I live in the southeast and we stay pretty humid, with winters being the driest time of year. I have no idea what the ideal humidity is for Chocolate trees but as a guess I would say the high 40's or 50's at the lowest.

They can stand some full sun but they will also do fine without any so you don't have to put them in the sunniest room of the house. Mine goes in a bedroom with only an hour or so of sunrise sunshine and then only half day of light coming through the window (eastern exposure so by noon the sun is on the other side of the house).

You can increase the humidity by clustering a lot of potted plants together around the chocolate. You can also spritz them with a spray bottle of water a couple of times each day. You can also run a cool steam humidifier on the plants if you live in a very dry area (the kind sold for treating colds or flu or people with breathing problems - they're pretty cheap). I think by "tenting" they mean that you can drape a curtain of clear plastic around the window to keep the air moist around the plants. You would want to create a plastic room big enough to cover all the plants without touching the leaves. I've done this in the past but the aphids and spider mite outbreaks were hard to control - so now I keep things a bit dryer and with more airflow. Your plants will adapt somewhat to whatever conditions you provide. If you are too dry the leaves will show it with brown tips or contorted shapes. Duplicating the tropics may be too much work but you might be able to keep your chocolate alive with just a bit of spritzing and keeping it moist.

I don't drink coffee so I never have coffee grounds around but plenty of people use them as a mulch. I don't think it adds anything special to the soil, it is just like any other compost or mulch.

I have 25 cacao baby trees. They stay outdoors and get some filtered morning sun and late afternoon sun. It is fairly humid here in the summer. In the winter it is pretty dry but I am near the coast. I plan to overwinter in my garage that has a few windows.
You can always run an ultrasonic humidifier if you need more humidity. (you can find these at terrarium supply stores) When mine are lacking I can tell because the edges of the leaves will dry and brown a little.

If you have a bathroom or kitchen with a window or skylight you can keep it in there for the winter. I keep alot of stuff in the bathroom that likes to stay real humid.

I got a cacao in the mail but the box look liked they dropped it from the plane then ran over it with the mail truck but it is doing okay, even growing. I put it in my bathroom which stays 10% to 20% more humid than the rest of the house with a window facing north. If mine can live through that, yours will be okay.

I will probably leave mine in the bathroom.
I just got mine in the mail today and it seemed like it was in very good conditions compared to your agnella. The window to the bathroom isn't too big though, but it's probably better than the semi-cold kitchen for now.
Thanks everyone