Shading

It’s coming to the time of year when people lucky enough to have a greenhouse have to think about shading it to protect the plants from the scorching sunlight. You can go to the garden centre and buy a packet of that white stuff you paint all over the outside of the glass. This works fine and I’ve used it myself in the past. Whilst applying it isn’t really a problem taking it off again isn’t such fun, also once it’s on that’s it, if you get a cold dull spell you have to live with it so these days what I use is a green mesh, take a look at the picture below.

[Click the pictures to enlarge]

It’s soft and pliable and just folds up when not needed. I have mine on the inside of the greenhouse because it works better that way for me.

At the bottom edge of the netting I've fastened a bamboo cane, this is mainly to stop the edge of the netting dropping and flopping about.

The vertical cane attached to the horizontal wires is an aid to sliding the netting and cane up out of the way when hading isn't needed on a dull day or in the evening.
The top edge of the netting is secured to the horizontal wire with twine or similar. When not in use the netting can be dragged to the top and left there until needed again when it's a simple job just to slide it down the vertical in to position.

I realise of course that not many of you will have a greenhouse such as this, the norm these days being a aluminium framed structure but don’t worry because you can still use this netting without incurring any inconvenience, instead of fixing it inside just fasten one end to a piece of broom handle or similar and attach the other end to one end of the greenhouse roof on the outside then all you have to do when you want shade is to roll out the netting along the roof of the greenhouse, you will need to secure the broom handle when the netting is rolled out to stop it slipping down the roof. Before I fixed my netting on the inside I used the roll out method on the outside and it worked fine and would probably keep on with the latter method but it just looks a bit better if the netting is fixed to the inside.

Anyway I hope that is of help to someone, and as I say I much prefer it to the white paint on stuff both for ease of use and flexability when it comes to shading the greenhouse.