My little overflow mini-greenhouse
I have a small and rather rundown shade house in which I keep most of my orchids, but by spring I knew I would need some sort of overflow solution for a few dozen plants.
I bought this, which is one of those little mini-greenhouses they sell in hardware stores. It comes with a clear-plastic cover with a zip up front. I removed the clear plastic and sewed on a shade cloth cover.
I had great misgivings about putting orchids in this, but it’s worked out well. All the orchids are in great health. I’m actually puzzled why they have done so well, and I’m thinking something along the lines of the fact that it sits in such an austere, sunburnt and biology-unfriendly part of the backyard that it’s as hostile to any pests as it is to anything else.
The only problem I’ve had is one hot day I left the front flap open for just a few minutes and two cattleyas were badly sunburnt. I think that’s indicative
of growing in a small space - when bad things occur they can happen very quickly.
In this thing I have about 20 little bag baby cattleyas, 8 cattleyas in 4 inch pots, and I think 7 intergeneric oncidiums and one vandanaceous noid.
When winter comes I’ll put the clear plastic cover back on and leave the flap open during the day. Our winter is a bit too cold for cattleyas outside but all space inside is taken - so it’ll be interesting to see how they fare in this.
I think next year I’ll need another.
Cheers
Arron
|
Threaded Mode
