New "Shade Table"

[Connie Star]

My hubby just finished building me a 3' by 8' rough cut white oak shade "house" that I am calling my shade table.
It is covered with 75% shade cloth from HD.
We've had no rain for several days and my rainwater reservoir is rapidly being depleted.
I'm getting light meter readings above 5000 fc (that's as high as my meter goes) at noon, and 2000-3000 earlier and later in the day. It is well shaded on the east by trees and on the west by the house.
Humidity has ranged from 25% to 85% with temps from 50-95 F. I've put gravel filled plastic trays under the plants to try to raise the humidity.
So far I have put out some Dens, Oncidia and Catt hybrids.
I'm excited!

[johnblagg]

Nice Connie I just built a Shade table myself this week out of a old kitchen table with a pvc frame attached to it wit just the fiberglass screenwire from Home depo ...they dont have "shade cloth" at our home depo how lame is that?
I am getting about the same readings under mine on the front deck in dappled shade from a oak tree...

I am have a little difficulty adjusting from inside to outside mysefl and also have a lot of new chids in bark now too and am misting a lot to keep humidity up as this was a very very dry week here...actulayy its been a month here with no rain to speak of untill toninght when it finaly rained enough to save my lawn.

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[trdyl]

Connie, It looks great.

[RosieC]

Looks good... and I see you have a chair so you can sit and enjoy them

[Connie Star]

John, I had to order the shade cloth from Home Despots on line catalogue.
It's supposed to be really hot- high 90s and no rain for the next several days. I'm worried about my plants cooking especially with the sudden change. Has anybody ever set up an outdoor mister?

[nutgirl]

Very nice, Connie.

You will have some very happy orchids.

Maureen

[Dail]

Hi Connie:

I have a friend with a "Shade Table" and his plants do beautifully there. The area with his Shade Table adjoins a patio so he sits and looks to his heart's content.

I hope you enjoy yours.

Dail

[johnblagg]

I have not connie but a system would not really be the difficult to put togather I would not think the one thing I would want to buy ready to use would be a timing system or some sort of automated controll .....I have had mist systems for outdoor use I built to cool many things with water from my well including my entire mobile home once and I simply used brass fogging nozzels I bought at the farm supply store ...they each had a replaceable filter of their own and were adjustable from a super fine fog to a jet stream.They were not cheap but I still have them after many many years and they still work fine...and the super fine mist is truly fine almost fog in fact.

But my systems were minimal for controlls I just turned the on or shut them off manually....No orchids to worry about as I was just cooling the roof down and even had a few misters in a tree to cool the air in the yard some...and I ran mine of solar panels and a 12 volt pump so forgetting to turn them off was not a issue and just watered the lawn with the excess that ran off

[peeweelovesbooks]

Congrats connie. It looks great.