I live in the northeast USA, and have a nice collection of Orchids. Lots
of Phals, a Paph, couple Cymbidiums, Dens, and Onc's...
I have a great bow window in my living room that gets western sun. The
phals in particular do GREAT there. Some bloom for 6- 8 months...
When they are done flowering I put them in my basement under banks of
cool/warm forescents. Again, the Phals seem to do great and spike each
year- the others don't flower and I assuming it is due to lack of light.
Now with spring coming I am thinking of getting a small hobby
greenhouse. I have been looking at the Julliana Polycarb green houses
(http://www.littlegreenhouse.com/basic.shtml) that I could put in my
backyard. I probably would not want to heat it in winter- so the plants
would have to come inside for a few months.
My question is this- would I be better off buying a HPS or MH light and
expanding a basement grow room? I think a greenhouse would be much more
fun, but if I dont get a commercial type (with heat, auto vents, etc)
will I have much success with it? Ideally I would like to purchace small
plants from a local greenhouse grower and develope them into plants I
can display in my livingroom window when in bloom.

--
Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile...

I'm not sure where in the Northeast you live, but I'm in Baltimore, a
little south of you, no doubt, and found when exploring the same
question that without heating, cooling and powered ventilation, I would
only be able to use a greenhouse about four or five months a year,
Spring and late Summer-early Fall. The rest of the time it's just too
hot or too cold. Realizing that, I invested instead in an HID light,
HPS in the Fall and Winter, MH conversion bulb in the Spring and
Summer. Seems to work well, no insect problems, and while not as much
fun as a greenhouse might be, actually more growing room than I would
have had in a reasonably priced GH. Just some thoughts.

CP

!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
html
head
title/title
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body
I would go with the basement grow room.  If you aren't going to heat your
greenhouse in the winter, there isn't much point.  Anything that could go
in the greenhouse could as easily be placed in a a
href="http://www.disas.com/GeorgeFuller.htm"lath house/a (easier and
cheaper than a greenhouse, and if you are just looking for structure in the
garden, a good alternative), or other suitable locations around the home.
 Also, if you don't get vents, you are asking for trouble in the summer.
 That limits your greenhouse use to perhaps 4 or 5 months a year, if that.br
br
I can bloom anything in a
href="http://www.msu.edu/%7Ehalgren/orchids/Growing_room.htm"my grow-room/a
that I could bloom in a greenhouse.  I still want a greenhouse, of course.
 But then again I'm well over the edge in terms of addiction, and I've been
considering a greenhouse for 10 years now.  It isn't something to dive into
lightly.  Some of the advantages to a greenhouse are vertical headroom, good
light,  and the ability to get water wherever the heck you want.  Plants
do seem to grow better in a greenhouse than in most basements, but a well
tuned basement room is just as good (just harder to get right).  br
br
I have several friends who have had greenhouses and switched back to growing
under lights.  One says he would never switch back to a greenhouse.  It is
easier to control heat and lighting in a grow-room, and if the power goes
down you aren't going to freeze out the entire collection.  Greenhouses are
a lot of work to maintain as well.br
br
Robbr
blockquote type="cite"
"
pre wrap=""I live in the northeast USA, and have a nice collection of Orchids. Lots
of Phals, a Paph, couple Cymbidiums, Dens, and Onc's...
I have a great bow window in my living room that gets western sun. The
phals in particular do GREAT there. Some bloom for 6- 8 months...
When they are done flowering I put them in my basement under banks of
cool/warm forescents. Again, the Phals seem to do great and spike each
year- the others don't flower and I assuming it is due to lack of light.
Now with spring coming I am thinking of getting a small hobby
greenhouse. I have been looking at the Julliana Polycarb green houses
(a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.littlegreenhouse.com/basic.shtml"http://www.littlegreenhouse.com/basic.shtml/a) that I could put in my
backyard. I probably would not want to heat it in winter- so the plants
would have to come inside for a few months.
My question is this- would I be better off buying a HPS or MH light and
expanding a basement grow room? I think a greenhouse would be much more
fun, but if I dont get a commercial type (with heat, auto vents, etc)
will I have much success with it? Ideally I would like to purchace small
plants from a local greenhouse grower and develope them into plants I
can display in my livingroom window when in bloom.

/pre
/blockquote
br
br
pre class="moz-signature" cols="$mailwrapcol"--
Rob's Rules: a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.msu.edu/~halgren"http://www.msu.edu/~halgren/a
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a. See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to purchase
more orchids, obtain more credit/pre
/body
/html

In article ,
Charles Peters wrote:

I'm not sure where in the Northeast you live, but I'm in Baltimore, a
little south of you, no doubt, and found when exploring the same
question that without heating, cooling and powered ventilation, I would
only be able to use a greenhouse about four or five months a year,
Spring and late Summer-early Fall. The rest of the time it's just too
hot or too cold. Realizing that, I invested instead in an HID light,
HPS in the Fall and Winter, MH conversion bulb in the Spring and
Summer. Seems to work well, no insect problems, and while not as much
fun as a greenhouse might be, actually more growing room than I would
have had in a reasonably priced GH. Just some thoughts.

CP

Yea, I live in New England (I am the one who started the
thread...different computer now). I think that venting the greenhouse
would be feasable for me - the Juliana greenhouses (and others) all have
top vents that can be controlled with a thermostat- and pretty cheaply.
I guess what I am wondering is should I buy one of these now (are they
any good?) and use it all spring, summer and part of the fall, and THEN
buy a HPS or MH for the basement in the winter? I just love the look of
a nice greenhouse, but I just dont know if it would be the right move
for a growing orchid collection if I wasnt going to use it year-round. I
want to spend less than $1000 for the greenhouse, AND I want it work
well for the orchids I described. So...I could get this set-up soon, or
I could spend less than half of that outfitting a grow room in the
basement...

Thanks for your input. Back when I was younger I grew "flowers" in a
grow room with a lot of success. I have built rooms before and do know
what it takes to tweak a basement section for growing. Now that I am
older and addicted to orchids I want to make the most of either a
greenhouse or a growroom with HID lighting...
Anyway- here are some nice ephotos of my friends commercial greenhouse
plants:

http://homepage.mac.com/terrapinstat...otoAlbum7.html

I would like to add another vote in favor of you sticking with an in-home
growing area for the following reasons,

1. You are already having a rate of success with your plants that you are
pleased with.

2. A passive greenhouse would only be useful to you a few months of the year at
best.

3. Any greenhouse under $1,000 is a bit of a fantasy to be quite honest. More
on that in a second.

A greenhouse may be more fun- it is actually- but they come with a whole new
host of problems.

For starters, your plants are far more subject to attack by pests outside the
more controlled environment for your home. You will have to spend more time
attending to such matters and plants will become a little battle scarred in the
process.

Second, a greenhouse may cost only $1,000, but you have to ventilate in the
summer and that means fans and electrical outlets and waterproofing concerns
etc. What I did in Houston when I was still at home in high school was build
myself a lathe house. Two workbench sets from Home Depot for $30 each, about
$10 of lumber to create a simple box frame, 6 slats across the top with
corrugated fiberglass on the top only (about $10 more), and $30 of shade cloth
for the top and sides. It was very open allowing plenty of ventilation of air
from the sides. And on superhot days, I just put the garden hose on top and ran
it for a few minutes every 2-3 hours. Kept the temp a good 15-20 degrees lower
inside- I kid you not. But more importantly, given my location I was able to
use this structure from March to December.

So with the lathe house idea you can get some outdoor time for your plants at a
cost of less than $150 plus a little extra water cost each month for my cooling
technique (which you may not need up there.)

Most of my Mexican species did great with the outdoor time during the year
since their native habitats were just a few hundred miles away. But the rest of
my plants did not get any significant benefit. In fact, due to pest issues and
my need to keep plants for sale in top shape, I kept quite a few things indoors
year round in the end. After the first season, only about 40% of my collection
did any time out of doors.

So since going to college (and now out of school and in apartments until I get
my first home) I have grown indoors 100%. And my plants get pulled for judging
just as much as anyone else's. A greenhouse is no guarantee of better growing
and the home environment is the residence of many of the best grown plants I
have ever seen.

Sure it means I cannot have Vandas right now (which KILLS me since I love them)
or large Catts (my first greenhouse will be loaded with guttata leopoldii), but
Phals, Paphs and mini-Catts thrive in my house- and keep a very pristine
appearance in the process.

If you do ever decide to go for a greenhouse, I would suggest planning to spend
at least $5,000. That will give you the buget to get a good unit and equip it
with everything you need to run it year round. That way, you will not be forced
to skimp on things and regret it later. You may be able to undercut that budget
by a good amount, but it will give you the flexibility to get everything you
really need up front.

Hope this helps!

Tom.

TS,

I'll throw in my 2 cents on this topic.


I grew for many years under lights, various types of lights, and in various
locations within the house. Last year I build a greenhouse. I did the
whole works and spent much much more than you are considering.

I love it and would never consider going back to growing indoors
underlights. Last month when the outdoor temp was in the 20's I was in
shorts and a tee-shirt in my bare feet caring for my collection. The
radiant heat from the sun felt like a great spring day. I splashed water
everywhere and it ran into the drain and I didn't have to worry about it. My
only regret is that the days are so short this time of the year to enjoy the
sun out there.

I think you get what you pay for! For $1,000 you are getting a large cold
frame that would give you the ability to extend the season a few weeks on
either end. I don't think you'd be happy in the long run with that. It
would do nothing more than protect your plants from frost and create a lot
of work controlling the environment.

What you are looking at might work further south where they have a few
days/weeks of cold weather north of DC it would not be practical from
Halloween through March without additional heat. Then there is the cooling.
Before I put the shade cloth back on last week and powered up the fan from
the evaporative cooler my greenhouse was getting over 100 degrees in
February. Just the vents alone were not enough to keep it in the 80s where
I prefer.

An unheated/uncooled greenhouse would need so much daily attention that you
would find yourself out there all the time working to keep the environment
just right. If you wanted to go away for a couple of days you could return
to find warm or cold mush where you left beautifully growing orchids.

For the price range you are talking I'd recommend staying with something in
the house. Save your nickels (dimes, quarters, and 20 dollar bills) and
someday build the dream greenhouse that gives you all environmental controls
and protection for your collection.