Greenhouse growing problems

[mickie09]

I recently purchased a small greenhouse...it's 6'7" tall and about 3feet wide. I have it in a position where it receives full sun all day. I left a few of my healthy orchids in there for the weekend thinking they woul love the heat and humidity. and have come back today to find all of them near death. The leaves on the phals are droopy and feel mushy or waterlogged...the oncidiums leaves appeared burnt (they were on the top shelf and received most sunlight and heat.) what can I do to make the greenhouse livable for them? I live in San jose, where temps in the house where they are usually kept range from about 74 drgrees to 60 at night. The phals were on the second down shelf down so. The weekend high here was 75 outside during the time it was in the greenhouse.

[Leafmite]

Wow! Such warm weather! We are expecting snow and temps in the twenties and teens!
Did you have a fan for air movement and some shadecloth?

[mickie09]

No. No fan or shade cloth! Is that what I did wrong?

[JanS]

Sorry, Mickle - but your plants got cooked. I live on the coast in San Diego so right now have cooler temps than you and have 2 greenhouses like you on top of our flat house roof. We have some trees and a cliff to the west that cuts the direct sun this time of the year to only a few hours a day but even with that limit, without major ventilation and a (solar) fan, the temps in the small GH can reach 100 deg (!!). You need shadecloth to fully cover the GS (orchids will burn in many hours of direct hot sunlight in a single day), and at least keep the door open during the day. Do you have a top window panel? That and an open door keeps the air circulating. I hate to say it, but your cooked and sunburnt plants may take a very long time to recover. I did the same thing years ago with an even smaller, plastic sheet "greenhouse" and the plants that survived took years to get back to normal and bloom.

But hey, live and learn! You still have a greenhouse which beats the heck out of a windowsill and when you get it right your plants will LOVE it!

[mickie09]

Oh no!! Wow that's so sad!! I have an overhang in my backyard as well..do you think it would work under there without using shade cloth? I will also get a fan in there in the meantime

[greengarden]

I had a small greenhouse similiar to that and it used to do well against the side of my house. I put it on a blank wall so it got sun in the first half of the day and then was in the shade of the house in the afternoon. I didn't have a fan or anything in there.

[RJSquirrel]

I think the second post we seem to get after 'got my new greenhouse up' is 'I killed all my plants'...you needed some shade cloth and some air movement. Heat gets intense fast when its trapped and the full sun pops out. Even the low lying sun of winter can burn getting help from plastic or sheeting that doesnt stop UV rays. Some Grow houses in much warmer climates grow outside in the full sun between late october and late march bec they have constant air movement, constant moisture and humidity from condensation due to the temperature differentials day and night.The condensation in itself has cooling properties. The sun is at a low angle to the earth and the rays are spread out across a wider area and allows this. Unlike summer where the suns angle is more overhead and the rays are concentrated in a smaller area. So you needs some shade and some air flow and you be okey

[mickie09]

So one of the phals I had in the greenhouse has now lost all of its leaves but the new spike that had already started growing and stem still look healthy...will it survive without the leaves?

[Ray]

Probably not, especially if it is expending its energy on trying to reproduce and carry on the gene pool.


Ray Barkalow
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