Sounds interesting euplusia! Your setup sounds like it works quite nicely for you! Would love to see it!
Yes...my orchid house is relatively small. I'm fairly certain that it's big enough for me though. As much as I love my orchids, I don't have any plans for thousands of them!
I have a fan mounted on one end that puts out very nice air movement across the entirety of the space. Also, I live on the Gulf Coast so I get a really nice breeze most of the time anyway.
I've been growing my orchids outside for many many years. But herein lies the problem. I have over a hundred orchids. Some are under tree's. Some are in baskets. Some are in the house when it gets too hot and others are on various different patios. Needless to say, watering days are especially exciting!
I'm running here and there and everywhere in this process AND dragging around a bucket with two gallons of my grog. I also have a bus-boy bucket that I purchased from Sam's and sometimes I use that for multiple plants....and I don't especially think THAT technique is very good for them. I'm always thinking that I'm going to spread a fungus or a virus not to mention critters. I think I've been REALLY lucky with that technique. Amazingly, my orchids have done quite well with not only softened water on one hand, but on the other side of the house, hard water with a TDS of 610 and chlorine.
I'd been watering with softened water for decades. When I stopped doing it, I noticed such a huge improvement in their growth and flowering. Not that they weren't growing or flowering....but there was definite improvement.
Then one day I decided that something had to give. It was just too much time. Did you know that there are ONLY 24 hours in a day?
So I decided that I needed an orchid house. I needed them all in one spot...or at least most of them in one spot. In addition, I decided to add RO water to my regimen.
I have to say that Ray at First Rays has helped me so much with the logistics and common sense of it all. It became so overwhelming.
His site offered so much valuable information and he has been kind enough to guide me through this "plan". Thanks Ray!
Took the 25 Gallon tank back and exchanged it for a 65. I'm putting in one of his RO systems and I'm hooking up a "jet pump" and a Mini Dos 1% metering proportioner which will deliver my fertilizer in the ppm of my choice.
The 65 Gallon tank will be the cache for the RO system and a float valve will keep it from over-flowing. It's going to have an automatic "thingie" to turn the RO off and on automatically.
Sorry...I forgot the name of that thing!
I'm dropping a submersible sump pump into the tank of clean pure water which will be put on a timer and run the
misting system which I'm going to build myself. Errrrr....with the help of my husband!
For the rare occasion that it gets cold here, I've got a radiant heater AND I'm installing hardware to attach solar pool blankets (clear) around the outside of the orchid house.
I may put the fan on a timer during the winter. Otherwise, it's just going to stay on.
Whew. Do I have that right Ray?
I still plan to "hand water" my plants. Although the humidity is high here in Florida, I need the effect of evaporative cooling during the dead of summer. It gets HOT here. Even plants in the tropics get rained on and cooled down.
As far as my collection goes....I have a lot of plants in the Catt alliance....some dendrobiums....some bulbies....Vanda's, Grammatophyllums, phals, slippers who hate me, Oncidiums, Odondoglossums, Epidendrums, Encyclia, Cymbidiums, a few mounted and some little guys that I have NO earthly idea what they are....clay pots, some plastic, a few in S/H and a bonsai. All bark, some sphag for mounts. I have squirrels too. Want one? They are free.
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Picking your brain on Proportioners!
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