The New Greenhouse Setup

[Barbara]

That's what I was thinking too Candace. I've already noticed the sudden and sever drop in humidity on the warmer sunnier days too and was thinking about looking into an evaporative cooler. Thanks for the advice.

Jim, that's wonderful, I was looking into getting shade cloth locally, but I'll check out this website too. Do you (or anyone) know what the best % is best for orchids? The place where we order this greenhouse sells 70% cloth, but that might be a little too shady for the Cattleya and strap leaf paphs.

The temperatures here do fluctuate quite a bit from year to year. We are a zone 6b, but sometimes the winters are more like zone 7, other times more like zone 5! lol

Right Charles, I was thinking the same thing after filling a large rain barrel yesterday for watering needs, hoping it would warm up enough for the orchids. We did install a double layer of that pink Styrofoam builder’s insulation under the gravel floor; it’s supposed to absorb heat during the day and release it at night, thereby reducing heating costs. So far I think it works to a certain degree.

 

[SlipperKing]

I've used 70% cloth w/o anyproblems blooming Cat and strap leaf Paphs but I live on/near the gulf coast

 

[SlipperFan]

Good looking greenhouse. It will be interesting to see how fast you fill it to capacity.

 

[cnycharles]

I've already noticed the sudden and sever drop in humidity on the warmer sunnier days too and was thinking about looking into an evaporative cooler.

Do you (or anyone) know what the best % is best for orchids? The place where we order this greenhouse sells 70% cloth, but that might be a little too shady for the Cattleya and strap leaf paphs.

1) warm air can really hold alot of moisture, making it much less available as 'relative humidity'. one person who had been talking about their small greenhouse said that they were able to significantly increase their humidity by leaving a water hose on a crack with a shutoff on the end (a little water fizzing out and misting on floor), said it was cheap and easy fix. if it happened to be at certain times of day, could have a water timer to turn on at certain times each day. i'm wondering if since you have such a small house, an evaporative cooler would work so well that it would crank up and turn off very quickly, then after a bit heat up again and then cycle quickly. seems like it might wear out the controlling units a lot more quickly than something that would be on a little over a period of time


2) that depends alot on how much light you get when you want to have the plants shaded and latitude and all that. you could just leave a small strip without shade along an outside wall and put your light-loving plants there, and then later if they are getting a little too much could tack up a little cloth in that spot. here in central ny even though we are fairly south of where you are, I think you are a bit outside of our wonderful cloudy weather zone (comparable to parts of northwestern u.s. where it rains all the time) so may get more light and need more shade than here. you could fasten ropes to each end (or other reasonable method of expanding/retracting curtain) so that you could pull it up and down when it gets really bright, especially since it's such a small house

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

Lovely, clean set-up. Congrats!

 

[Barbara]

Oh Dot, I'm already thinking that it's much too small, but we couldn't squeeze a larger greenhouse into our backyard with all the trees and such. There's a baby Dawn Redwood behind it, which worries me a little.

Interesting point about the evaporative cooler wearing out Charles, I'm finding that the little heater we have is running a lot, and it's not even winter yet. This might be hard on all of the controls.

I emailed Polysack in the US and they're recommending 50% shade cloth. The light levels around here vary from year to year greatly....lake influence...

Thanks for all the help!

 

[SlipperFan]

Oh Dot, I'm already thinking that it's much too small, but we couldn't squeeze a larger greenhouse into our backyard with all the trees and such. There's a baby Dawn Redwood behind it, which worries me a little.

They grow slowly. You are probably safe for a long time.

We have a big back yard, but my husband has put his foot down with regard to making sure anything we might build fits with the architecture and scale of our home.

Always something, right?!

 

[cnycharles]

i'm wondering if it would be a safe bet to get a greenhouse that's only a certain size so that if there were an emergency, the plants would still fit in your house! if they wouldn't fit in your house, then you would be just begging Mr. Murphy to come knocking on your door and have something bad happen. sort of like having the backup generator, if you had one the power would likely never go out, but if you didn't then it would probably be going out all the time

 

[Barbara]

Know what you mean Dot. You should have seen my sister and I running around the backyard with tape-measure trying to figure out which trees we might be able to wedge this thing between. The neighbors were very quiet for a little while. lol

Charles I think you know exactly how that all works. :clap: We haven't had a single power failure, flicker or brown out all year. Now this week we have had two powers flickers since the big orchid migration. So you can bet that now we’re looking into backup heater just in incase.

 

[etex]

Congratulations!! Nice greenhouse. All your plants look so healthy and lush!!

 

[Jimsox]

That is beautiful. I noticed no shade cloth or anything, it's not too much light?

 

[helenae]

Such a healthy and happy plants