26 February 2009

Orchid Tent.

I noticed this morning that a couple of the orchids are sending up flower spikes, one was so far advanced that it was in need of staking. I think this is best done sooner rather than later as I've actually broke one off in the past when it was almost ready to flower which was quite a nuisance. I'm no expert on orchids so the above is just my own feelings on the matter. I have noticed that they do like to be kept quite warm. I used to try and grow them just in the greenhouse but found they didn't so well and went almost yellow in the winter so I made this tent like contraption to house them in the winter. If you look at the first picture you will see three yellow strips running along the back and down the side. These stips are heated cables and go all the way round the sides and also on the bottom of the box. They are connected to a thermstat which is set to 25C and the orchids are now much happier.
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Here is a longer view of the tent open to give accesss to the plants.
And here it is closed up, I would sometimes like to climb in there myself and pull down the curtain on the cold and damp!

1 comment:

EB said...

Hm. Intriguing. Not something I'd want to do at the moment, when the bare essentials keep me busy. I don't really get orchids - funny spindly things. But it does give me an idea for a post, and I like the ingenuity of the tent!