New windowsill grow area w/pics - Orchid Board

tmaxwell · #1 04-15-2011, 09:58 PM

Hi All,
Been a while sine I posted, so here's an update of my growing collection...

I have acquired quite a few plants recently, mostly from Ruben in Florida. If you don't frequent Ebay, he's a great seller, mostly catt types.

OK, so I needed more space. What's wrong with that?
I didn't have a good window in the new place, only NW facing, so a light source was in order. The plants were also to reside in our bedroom, so decent looks were a must.

I ended up with a 6' shelf, of 1x12 pine, which costs about $4 here. The plants rest on drainage trays consisting of those cheap black seed-starters, with white egg crate cut to fit inside. (The egg crate sits atop 1.5" disks of PVC, for drainage.) There's a 1x3" piece of cedar across the front of the shelf, which hides the trays, and adds stiffness. The whole thing fits snug under a windowsill. Cost... about 20 dollars in all.

The lamp is 4.5', with 6 3x1w 12v daylight LED bulbs. I wired then all together parallel. If I were smart, I would have used the mr16 bases for which the lamps were made. Oh well. It's all cased in 1x4 cedar, looks pretty sharp if you ask me, except I had zero time for sanding/finishing etc, so it could use improvement there. It's powered by a cheap digital switching wall wart, rated for 12v 1.5A, perfect for 18 watts. It has a fairly low output on paper, but there is a distinct difference between LED and other light sources, which is often overlooked. Most of the light output from fluorescents is scattered, and never reaches the leaf surface. LED's with a collimating lens are different, the light is very coherent. I compared side-by-side one of the 3x1w bulbs (rated 230 lumen) to a 27w CFL w/ reflector (rated 1700 lumen), and they were of very similar brightness at a distance of 1.5'. Anything beyond that, and the LED was much brighter (for the given area...) My lamp ended up about 3' about the shelf, so about 2-2.5' above the plants. At this distance, the bulbs I'm using cast a light circle of about 1.5'. According to the spec sheet, 90% of the light falls within this circle! Pretty impressive.
Total cost...about $30*

* To build something like this for such an insanely good price, you must get the bulbs from Hong Kong, i.e. Ebay.
I got mine for $3 each, shipped! Maybe not the build quality of the phillips one available here, but also not thirty dollars apiece.

I did, now that I think of it, see some E27 LED flood lamps, 17w I think, at Sams Club for $20. Good price, but not spot lamps, so the light is diffuse any anything else... maybe worth a look though!

I'm pretty happy with a grow area for ~ 55 plants, which cost this little. Not too time consuming, either. Sure makes watering easier, and the lights are on a timer.

OH, I've got some photos, most self explanatory. There's a Soph. cernua, with all but one bloom finished. You can see a pod developing, which is a cross with Cattleyopsis (Broughtonia) cubensis. Missed photos of that one.

There's also a photo of my (YAY) *growing* Amorphophallus titanum! That guy froze on it's way here in the mail, but somehow came through... almost lost some real bread on that one.

There's also a shot of my pride and joy C. Warscewiczii sanderiana, from Ruben. It's from really great breeding stock in Colombia, from what I hear. Grows like a beast.

Ooh, and the Thrixspermum. Can't wait to see blooms. Imported from Thailand in the fall, never missed a beat, grows like a weed in the tank. 8 spikes!

Thanks for looking!
tyler