Vertical wall design indoor orchid setup

[Jussi_K]

Hello,

I live in Finland. Outdoors is suitable for tropical plants maybe 2-3 months a year. We have very cold winter which results in dry air indoors. Not ideal conditions for orchids.

Before I had vivarium type setup. It was very expensive and bulky. My wife didn't like it at all.

Now I have made this vertical garden design. It has been running for 1 month now. Everything seems going pretty well. There was some plant damage at start but it was expected considering the size of the setup.

Vertical wall is very simple to make. I have plywood case covered with pond rubber. Plants are grown in 3 layers of epiweb substrate.

I have water container at the bottom. I add maybe 10 liters of water in week and every other week add fertilizer. I use water also for my bonsai to get excess minerals away from the setup.

Lightning:
I have 1 main light. Its cob led light. I chose it purely because it is cheap to buy and very small. It paid around
130-140 dollars for it. It uses around 110 W. It is very bright. To make this living room suitable you could use 50% white and 50% red leds. This will however be much more expensive to run.

That's why I have separate light just for the looks. I have 10M 5050 smd leds around the wall. These are very cheap if you buy from china through ebay. I use 50% white and 50% red leds in strips. I took waterproof ones. These are super easy to work with, just cut the length you need.
Watering:
I have 1 pump that waters twice a day 15 minutes. This keeps plants moist all the time. However my substrate is very, very airy. That's probably the reason I get away with the over watering. Setup resembles these ebb flow hydroponic systems. Wall drip watering oxygenates the water very well. Water is distributed through PVC piping which is full of small holes.

Nutrition:
I have biotope of bacteria living on lava rocks at the bottom. They keep PH constant. They also will dissolve plant waist and convert nitrites to nitrates.


Air circulation:
None is needed thanks to extremely airy substrate.

Plants:
I have some ferns, some bromeliads and orchids. Orchids are mostly cattleya hybrids. Some aerangis and phragmipedilums too. I plan to buy mini phals if I lose bromeliads during winter.