Advice on a suitable orchid house

[OrchidDude]

Hi,

I am wanting to build a small orchid enclosure - perhaps 3-4m x 2m. I am hoping for some advice on suitable material to meet my needs, and also, some advice on lath house vs shade house. Due to my local climate, I will be growing mostly cold tolerant species.I will run u past my climate briefly.

winter - generally wet, during coldest part, daytime highs of approx 8-10 C, night time can get down to approx -2C, with some frosts, but not real heavy in my yard

Summer does not get much hotter than 35C (although tomorrow will be 38C), with night time temps in the teens. humidity is probably generally low in summer.

Basically what I want is to:

- Keep plants dry in winter
- have suitable shade/dappled light in summer
- be able to have provide a level of humidity in summer
- protect plants from extremes in all seasons.
- suitable light in winter

I am thinking shadehouse/lath house with clear plastic type roofing to protect from rain. I was leaning towards a lathhouse, because I think the dappled light would be nice, but it may prove to be more difficult to provide the humidity in summer?

Do sides need to be solid at all to protect against weather/rain blowing in?? I know that good air circulation is important.

Would love to hear peoples opinions/experiences. Sorry if this question is too open or vague

[Polarizeme]

I'd be interested in some of those questions being answered. My greenhouse project just got moved to the top of the priority list.

[OrchidDude]

Originally Posted by Polarizeme

I'd be interested in some of those questions being answered. My greenhouse project just got moved to the top of the priority list.

Funny that you should raise this again. I decided to just jump in and do it... I will post the end result soon. I have the frame completed, am about to go out and continue installing the trusses... keep you posted

[Silje]

I had different growing conditions to take into consideration. In my area it is the winter that is dry and the summer that is wet. Seasonal temperature variations look more or less the same. My biggest challenge was the humidity, or lack of, and after trying with some home-made shade net/plastic structures, I eventually settled for a greenhouse building set. That did solve my humidity problem. For ventilation I've got one automatic roof vent and when humidity is high enough, I open the door for more air. Have not had a problem with mould or fungi yet, only a bit of green algae that I did not use to have while growing in my window sills. The greenhouse is under a tree so that it has direct sunlight in the mornings and afternoons, and dappled light during daytime. Ive got cheap thermometer/humidity meter with an alarm that beeps if temps go beyond the limits I've set, and I small misting system on a timer. Size of the greenhouse is app. what you're looking for. Total cost was 800 U$ roughly. Did a lot for my orchids! I'm so happy I got this set-up, even if its far from perfect and I still got to make some tweaks and adjustments to make it even better.

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