garysan
It's a learning curve...
I’ve been meaning to do a grow list/collection post for a couple of months but it kept slipping my mind. Then I had a redesign of my growing area so decided to do a thread combining the two and will add to it as things change and the collection grows. I also thought some members might be interested in the full story plus the ‘build' of my growing area and journey thus far.
The current collection is as follows. I intend to expand the Paph side of things of the most, followed by the occasional Phrag and may utilise the recently spare (see below) vivarium for either Masdevallia’s or perhaps a few mounted epiphytes; haven’t decided yet.
** Updated 21/04/16) **
Phrag. Ainsworthii
Phrag. Eric Young
Phrag. Eric Young 4N
Phrag. Memoria Dick Clements
Phrag. Cape Bonanza
Phrag. besseae (‘Colossal x ‘Bleeding Heart’)
Phrag. besseae (’Smokin’ x ‘Colossal’)
Phrag. besseae fma. flavum
Phrag. Eumelia Arias
Phrag. Hanne Popow
Phrag. Cardinale
Paph. leucochilum
Paph. bellatulum
Paph. appletonianum
Paph. appletonianum var. hainanense
Paph. villosum
Paph. insigne var. sanderae
Paph. helenae
Paph. delenatii fma. album
Paph. delenatii var. vinicolor
Paph. vietnamense
Paph. concolor
Paph. niveum fma. album
Paph. godefroyae
Paph. niveum
Paph. thaianum
Onc. Colmanara Catatante
Phal. NoID (Pink)
Phal. NoID (White)
I’ve only been into this hobby for a little over six months but have been inspired by people on this forum and elsewhere as to how to grow my orchids as I don’t have (nor will have anytime soon) a greenhouse and to maintain marital bliss, I have to keep most of the windowsills clear of plants…
Originally, after reading and seeing what Karma had achieved with enclosed vivariums over at orchidkarma.com and a couple of other folk had done with theirs on orchidforum.eu, I bought a large Exo-Terra glass terrarium with light canopy, some computer fans with a variable controller and a Lucky Reptile Super Fog II humidifier. The idea was to keep all my orchids in a nice, controlled environment that wouldn’t impact on the rest of the room/house. This seemed to work well and everything in there produced new growths and a couple of new arrivals produced spikes within a month or two.
As you can imagine, I soon started to outgrow this and a few Paph’s started appearing on the kitchen windowsill, a couple of Phal’s on the spare bedroom windowsill, etc. Much to my surprise, my wife suggested turning the spare bedroom, where the vivarium is, into a more dedicated orchid room with a sofa bed instead of the large double-bed which was currently in there gathering dust (thinking about it, if she’d given me carte blanch over the room, I’d have put a sofa in there anyways so win win!). This would then give me a wall that could house a metal rack system of 3 or 4 shelves, approx. 5 feet wide and 18” deep. I guesstimated that this would give me enough room for maybe 150 plants. So, things were moved, rack was ordered and promptly built.
Didn't take too long to put together once I'd decided where the shelves were going; boltless design so just a few taps/whacks with the rubber mallet to attach each beam to the uprights.
(I put a couple of my phrags in the centre tray for size comparison).
Once built, I was able to take detailed measurements of the inside of the shelf space to work out exactly what lighting to get. Wanting to get the most light possible, I managed to just squeeze in some 5ft T8 single 58w units by carefully selecting fixtures that would *just* fit within the side beams of the racking (I have less then 1mm spare each side).
This image looks weird because of the angle of the shot (the sides of the rack look curved inwards but they're not in real life, they're dead straight).
The installation of the T8 fixtures was a bit of a pain because the size of the fixture is almost exactly the same width of the chipboard shelf and that sits on a wide lip of each metal beam so you can’t fit everything to the shelf and then simply place the shelf into position. The wiring had to be measured and tacked into place and holes drilled for mounting the fixtures, then remove the fixtures, fit the shelf and finally, re-fit the light fittings and connect wires, etc. I don’t think I’d like to do another one but now it’s done, I’m really happy with it. Lighting goes right to the very edge of each shelf and it all looks made to measure which I like
Here's a shot of how they look once mounted to the underside of a shelf:
I’ve bought a slightly bigger humidifier to take care of the whole room rather than using the Superfog II as it’s really built to be outside of an enclosed space with a pipe attached. If you remove the pipe, it then spits water out the top and onto whatever the unit is sitting on so not really ideal. I plan on having RH about 60%-65% which should be plenty for the paph’s and phrags but not enough to create mould problems within the room and I’m only running the humidifier during the day right now.
All that’s left to do is sort out a couple/three decent fans as the small computer ones I used for the vivarium are (I suspect) far too small for this new growing area. I’ve already moved the plants ‘in’ and am currently using a pedestal fan that we have for air circulation. I can see me having a very happy upcoming year (and probably the next few at least), populating the rack with new plants
If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask and likewise if you have any suggestions, I’m more than happy to hear
The current collection is as follows. I intend to expand the Paph side of things of the most, followed by the occasional Phrag and may utilise the recently spare (see below) vivarium for either Masdevallia’s or perhaps a few mounted epiphytes; haven’t decided yet.
** Updated 21/04/16) **
Phrag. Ainsworthii
Phrag. Eric Young
Phrag. Eric Young 4N
Phrag. Memoria Dick Clements
Phrag. Cape Bonanza
Phrag. besseae (‘Colossal x ‘Bleeding Heart’)
Phrag. besseae (’Smokin’ x ‘Colossal’)
Phrag. besseae fma. flavum
Phrag. Eumelia Arias
Phrag. Hanne Popow
Phrag. Cardinale
Paph. leucochilum
Paph. bellatulum
Paph. appletonianum
Paph. appletonianum var. hainanense
Paph. villosum
Paph. insigne var. sanderae
Paph. helenae
Paph. delenatii fma. album
Paph. delenatii var. vinicolor
Paph. vietnamense
Paph. concolor
Paph. niveum fma. album
Paph. godefroyae
Paph. niveum
Paph. thaianum
Onc. Colmanara Catatante
Phal. NoID (Pink)
Phal. NoID (White)
I’ve only been into this hobby for a little over six months but have been inspired by people on this forum and elsewhere as to how to grow my orchids as I don’t have (nor will have anytime soon) a greenhouse and to maintain marital bliss, I have to keep most of the windowsills clear of plants…
Originally, after reading and seeing what Karma had achieved with enclosed vivariums over at orchidkarma.com and a couple of other folk had done with theirs on orchidforum.eu, I bought a large Exo-Terra glass terrarium with light canopy, some computer fans with a variable controller and a Lucky Reptile Super Fog II humidifier. The idea was to keep all my orchids in a nice, controlled environment that wouldn’t impact on the rest of the room/house. This seemed to work well and everything in there produced new growths and a couple of new arrivals produced spikes within a month or two.
As you can imagine, I soon started to outgrow this and a few Paph’s started appearing on the kitchen windowsill, a couple of Phal’s on the spare bedroom windowsill, etc. Much to my surprise, my wife suggested turning the spare bedroom, where the vivarium is, into a more dedicated orchid room with a sofa bed instead of the large double-bed which was currently in there gathering dust (thinking about it, if she’d given me carte blanch over the room, I’d have put a sofa in there anyways so win win!). This would then give me a wall that could house a metal rack system of 3 or 4 shelves, approx. 5 feet wide and 18” deep. I guesstimated that this would give me enough room for maybe 150 plants. So, things were moved, rack was ordered and promptly built.
Didn't take too long to put together once I'd decided where the shelves were going; boltless design so just a few taps/whacks with the rubber mallet to attach each beam to the uprights.
(I put a couple of my phrags in the centre tray for size comparison).
Once built, I was able to take detailed measurements of the inside of the shelf space to work out exactly what lighting to get. Wanting to get the most light possible, I managed to just squeeze in some 5ft T8 single 58w units by carefully selecting fixtures that would *just* fit within the side beams of the racking (I have less then 1mm spare each side).
This image looks weird because of the angle of the shot (the sides of the rack look curved inwards but they're not in real life, they're dead straight).
The installation of the T8 fixtures was a bit of a pain because the size of the fixture is almost exactly the same width of the chipboard shelf and that sits on a wide lip of each metal beam so you can’t fit everything to the shelf and then simply place the shelf into position. The wiring had to be measured and tacked into place and holes drilled for mounting the fixtures, then remove the fixtures, fit the shelf and finally, re-fit the light fittings and connect wires, etc. I don’t think I’d like to do another one but now it’s done, I’m really happy with it. Lighting goes right to the very edge of each shelf and it all looks made to measure which I like
Here's a shot of how they look once mounted to the underside of a shelf:
I’ve bought a slightly bigger humidifier to take care of the whole room rather than using the Superfog II as it’s really built to be outside of an enclosed space with a pipe attached. If you remove the pipe, it then spits water out the top and onto whatever the unit is sitting on so not really ideal. I plan on having RH about 60%-65% which should be plenty for the paph’s and phrags but not enough to create mould problems within the room and I’m only running the humidifier during the day right now.
All that’s left to do is sort out a couple/three decent fans as the small computer ones I used for the vivarium are (I suspect) far too small for this new growing area. I’ve already moved the plants ‘in’ and am currently using a pedestal fan that we have for air circulation. I can see me having a very happy upcoming year (and probably the next few at least), populating the rack with new plants
If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask and likewise if you have any suggestions, I’m more than happy to hear
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