Now, here's the living room and my Paphs.
I HATE this shelving unit. It is such a piece of $@%&!! The little plastic screws that tighten the height of the adjustable shelves crack under pressure. I hate it. I want to dump it. ASAP. I didn't even want to move with it, but it was what I had. It is NOT directly in front of the windows, however it gets southern light in the morning from the window to the left and quite a bit of south western light from the window in the front throughout the afternoon. There is a nice fan in here, a ceiling fan, which I actually find very useful.
Problems - it is obstructed now by the air conditioning unit in the window to the left, so lower shelves are no longer getting the light from that window. There isn't enough room for tall plants. Two are on the floor (where they get good sun but they really cannot remain there indefinitely) and two are in windowsills.
Other obstacles (herein lies the big problem with this room).
This is our living space and S.O. HATES the plants. So this is what happened when we had to compromise:
The initial thought was that this room would only temporarily house plants, that we would build something in the dining room (where the Phrags are). A low bench running the width of the windows, with cabinets underneath for storage. However, I don't feel I get enough light in there to justify doing that and if a bench were built, and lights were hung from the ceiling, the plants would be too low to benefit much from the lights. Also, it isn't a large enough space (though that was part of the reasoning in moving my plants to S/H). The lights would likely be my wonderlights because again, this is living space. The problem with the wonderlights is that, though I had good luck with them, I preferred the 300W which the manufacturer and I concluded were defective (through a year of monthly free replacements each time they blew out). So, they'd only be 160s, not enough IMO. I could also conceivably get some sort of flourescent or compact flourescent which we could raise and lower above the plants, but that could be pricey and you-know-who is very anti-heather-spending-on-plants right now. Also, you-know-who is very reticent to hang lots of things from the ceiling.
So, I think there are two options. Get enough of those two shelf units on casters to shelve plants on the top only and move them where the light is, using the CFLs I have currently as supplemental lighting (they aren't great but they do seem to help some).
OR go back to growing all the plants on one huge table in the spare room.
There I could use the MH light I have in the basement. I could probably use the $100 gift certificate I got over a year ago to purchase either a light rail mover OR something from whence to hang the light so that holes in the ceiling would be minimal.
I realize this last idea probably sounds the best, and I am amenable to it but we went from 1700 sq. feet to around 900 sq. feet and this is the only spare room. It houses all of our office stuff (G will say computers = high humidity issues), extra furniture that we use (we have one closet in the whole house!) and the cat box area (yuck!). So, there are some issues with me co-opting a fair portion of it for the plants. I still think it may be the best option though, and if I were to do this, I could continue to use the one good cart for the blooming orchids in the living room and a few in windows and in the kitchen. I really enjoy having the plants in my living area and would like to continue to enjoy that to an extent. There is only western sun in the spare room, but two windows, so there would still be some natural light, though there is a house on this side of the building that would cause more obstruction. This last idea would also mean the least out of pocket expense because I already have most of the equipment. I think this is my bargaining chip w/ S.O.
Finally (I know this is SOO long - is anyone still reading??
Hope so! )
Here are my kitchen windows which this time of the year are getting great sunshine in the afternoon and can take some overflow plants.
That's Mosi, threatening to chomp my tigrinum.
Thank you (!!) for reading all of this if you still are. I've been gearing up to post this thread for a LONG time (since we moved 4/1) but I have wanted to have a better idea of what exactly was going on with the sun. I imagine all this will change come autumn, and I think I need a better plan than these stop gap measures. I've been a little embarrased to post this also because I just think the whole thing is rather pathetic compared to where I was growing in the old house, but the plants are holding their own.
Good plants!
ity:
Suggestions Welcome!!
