Where my Chids live!

[dgenovese1]

I thought that I'd share with everyone a short photo tour of where my chids live.

1. When you step outside, this is the view you get of my phal area on the patio...which faces west. It's a great place to sit and read in the afternoon when all my chid chores are done...and the sunsets aren't too bad either.
2. Take a few more steps out towards the pool, and you're greeted by the poolside vanda racks hanging on the south side of the pool cage.
3. When you turn around from the pool racks, you'll get a chance to see a few display racks that border the patio area. Right now there are a few dendrobs, paphs, oncidiums and catts.
4. Look towards the left, and you'll see the south wall of the shade house. Note the brown rolls at the top of the walls. These are my cold protection roll-downs that snap into place. They can cover all three exposed walls when needed on the few chilly nights we get here each winter.
5. The first thing you'll see when you enter the shade house is my potting bench and my encyclia collection (mostly encyclias anyway).
6. Here is a shot of the encyclia bench looking at it from the end where I have a few deciduous dendrobs hanging.
7. Looking out from the potting bench is a panoramic view of the main part of my collection. I have most of my vanda collection along the south and north facing outer walls, and three benches of catts and other odds and ends along the middle and back wall.
8. And one last shot of the poolside vandas as you leave the shade house.

The shade house is an aluminum structure with screen walls, and a polycarbonate roof. There is a 40% alluminet shade cloth under the polycarbonate, giving me 50% shade. The roll-downs are made of a soft awning material called sunbrella. The benches in the shade house are custom, all aluminum. They were expensive, but I'll never have to buy benches again.

The whole structure is 24 X 12 feet, and is rated for a category 3 hurricane. The benches are just wide enough to fit through the door, so when a storm is forecast, we just carry them into the patio area and close our accordion hurricane shutters, keeping all the chids safe.