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Thread: My greenhouse etc... the first of a series of postings...

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  1. #1
    Real Name
    Geoff Hands
    My Grow Area
    Greenhouse
    Favorite Orchid(s)
    Cattleya ?
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    England, South coast.
    Posts
    4,366
    Member's Country Flag

    Default My greenhouse etc... the first of a series of postings...

    Name:  end-view-outside.jpg
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    This is the view from the south end. It is 15 foot wide, and is a design ( no longer made) called Hartley Botanic. The point of the half round shape is to maximise light gathering. Think of the classic Dutch House, with 75˚ sloping sides and a shallow 15˚ roof designed to suit The Netherlands ( on the same latitude as UK ) - this just takes those ideas a couple of steps further forward.
    But it is expensive to manufacture - instead of single glazing bars for the roof there are 3 at each place, needing rigid connections, so the roof is supported on trussed arches.
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    There is a lot of other stuff to mention visible in this pic, but I'll get to it later.
    The roof shape also means that the layer of polythen insulation - twin walled sandwiching large bubbles , usual in UK, has to be on the outside :-Name:  bubble-p.jpg
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    Also on the outside now are roller blinds made of aluminum strip 60% shadecloth ( home made ) which I roll down for the summer, and roll up and secure at the ridge for the winter :-
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    These are amazingly effective ; when the sun shines on them, you can't look at the reflected light without being blinded.

    The inside, the plants, the techie' in next postings.....

  2. #2
    Real Name
    Geoff Hands
    My Grow Area
    Greenhouse
    Favorite Orchid(s)
    Cattleya ?
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    England, South coast.
    Posts
    4,366
    Member's Country Flag

    Default

    The current arrangement of plants :-Name:  left-side-roof..jpg
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    This shows the left hand side, and the roof area ; the upper two rows of plants are mostly vandaceous, and the lower 3 or 4 ( 3 at some places where there are taller or larger plants, 4 at others where they are a bit smaller) are dendrobiums.
    On the bench itself -Name:  LH-bench-front.jpg
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    depending where you look, are paphs ( the last 50 or so of what was once my National Collection of these), phrags, brassias, oncidiums, Zygos, and Pleurothallids - I am getting rid of all Pleuros, to create more space for dendrobiums and cattleyas in particular.
    The right bench is similar ; Name:  RH-bench-and-roof.jpg
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    The dendrobiums here are larger plants, so less layers, the blue trays , each about 30 x 20 inches ( 50 x 70cm ) are for S/H plants - mostly oncidiums - meaning the old multigenera things like Vuylstekearas, Withneraras, Odontocidiums, Colmanaras, and so on.
    The centre bench is , for about 80 or 90% of its length, cattleyas :-
    Name:  Cattleyas.jpg
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    More in the next posting, and then the techie stuff.....

  3. #3
    My Grow Area
    Windowsill
    Favorite Orchid(s)
    Dendrobium, Cattleya
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Gender
    Male
    Location
    Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    5,021
    Member's Country Flag

    Default

    No problems with having the Vanda above the Dendrobium?

  4. #4
    Real Name
    Jack
    My Grow Area
    Outside 24/7
    Favorite Orchid(s)
    Bulbophyllum and the rest!
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Gender
    Male
    Location
    Cooper City, Florida
    Posts
    7,614
    Member's Country Flag

    Default

    Nice setup Geoff with lots of interesting looking orchids!

  5. #5
    Real Name
    ana. danaya
    My Grow Area
    Sunroom
    Favorite Orchid(s)
    Cattleyas
    Join Date
    Aug 2018
    Gender
    Female
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    129
    Member's Country Flag

    Default

    Amazing your greenhouse, so many plants! Impressive!

  6. #6
    My Grow Area
    Under Lights
    Favorite Orchid(s)
    fragrant catts but love all ..
    Join Date
    Feb 2018
    Gender
    Male
    Location
    Pasadena California
    Posts
    38

    Default

    Very healthy plants!!!great job!

  7. #7
    Real Name
    Robb
    My Grow Area
    Under Lights
    Favorite Orchid(s)
    Cattleyas!
    Join Date
    May 2018
    Gender
    Male
    Location
    Kentucky, USA
    Posts
    873

    Default

    Wow! I'm jealous of all that growing space. Looks awesome.

  8. #8
    Real Name
    Zainal Abidin Bin Othman
    Favorite Orchid(s)
    Huntleya, Bollea, Cochleanthes
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Location
    Melaka, West Malaysia
    Posts
    14,968
    Member's Country Flag

    Default

    Awesome..Geoff now the plants arrangement were excellent and very neat are you do it by your self or somebody help and assist you? By the way ..Bravo for the wonderful Greenhouse.

  9. #9
    Real Name
    Geoff Hands
    My Grow Area
    Greenhouse
    Favorite Orchid(s)
    Cattleya ?
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    England, South coast.
    Posts
    4,366
    Member's Country Flag

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by zainal abidin View Post
    Awesome..Geoff now the plants arrangement were excellent and very neat are you do it by your self or somebody help and assist you? By the way ..Bravo for the wonderful Greenhouse.
    All my own work , Zain. I get a little help when I am away for more than a few days, with the helper given instruction, and injunctions , such as "spray this line, from this tank, every three days. Spray nothing else, " etc. My present helper in this regard also does 2 or 3 hours in my garden each week, trimming hedges etc., he is an aircraft fitter/engineer made redundant from the nearby airport - knows nothing about plants r gardening, but seems capable of following instructions reliably and well......

  10. #10
    Real Name
    Geoff Hands
    My Grow Area
    Greenhouse
    Favorite Orchid(s)
    Cattleya ?
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    England, South coast.
    Posts
    4,366
    Member's Country Flag

    Default Cymbidiums - untouched by human hand

    Further along the bench with tthe S/H I have my cymbidiums - about 200 pots of them. They were all repotted , with division of the larger plants, so that all most are probably flowering size if they grow well, and few are large flowering sioxze. I simply cannot lift a large cymbidium nowadays ( my age , no doubt ) and even an 8 inch or 10 inch pot, when well watered is more than I want to heave about ; at least I don't mind one, but doing a hundred... no way. So, automatic watering - which brings me to the start of my techie stuff. But first here is a pic of what some of them look like.
    Name:  Cymbidiums.jpg
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    The new leaves are good - reach the glass above them, in some cases, and the headroom is never less than a metre often 1.5.
    Water ( and nutrients) is stored under the central bench, in a series ( about 6 or 7) 250 litre tanks.
    Name:  underbench-tanks.jpg
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    One of them for the cymbidiums contains an immersed pump, switched on for about an hour, twice a day. the water is fed to a computer

    Name:  computer.jpg
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    which opens the supply to a distributor

    Name:  distributor.jpg
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    The distributor has 6 connections each for a separate drip line. I am using 4 at the moment. Each time the water supply is on, it shunts the connection to the next of the six. So in six operations of the pump, each line gets the water once. Obviously all the settings, like how many times per day, or week, and how long for each pump operation, can be changed on the computer.

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