Hi Ben, Looking forward to your Posts! I also live in Broward. Do you go to the F.L.O.S.?

-Ray-

Hi Ray, I'm, an AOS and Coral Springs OS member. I've wanted to go around to visit other societies meetings in the area but the time just is not available. FLOS is particularly far from where I live. Maybe in the future, I'll get to go around a bit.

Ben--welcome from another Broward resident. Always good to have another experienced grower aboard. I'm in Pembroke Pines, member of 5 local societies and have lurked on other forums. We are more geared to helping novice orchid growers, keeping banter to a minimum, but we do have a bit of levity on the conversation side of this forum.

Ray, I just sent in my membership renewal check to Ft. Lauderdale Society. A long timemember, I have had to forgo meetings lately but I sure miss the newsletter!

Welcome to the board :)

Ben
Just the person I want to talk to !! I'm in the process of redoing my shadehouse as well as my entire landscape
I want to enlarge the shadehouse to around 25x25 and house my 3 main interests. Orchids , waterplants ,understory palms and 4 pairs of nectavore birds.
I'm located in Palm Beach county so you should be of real help>
I have a million questions but will limit myself to these.
What type of materal to make it out of ?? My present one was originally a screenroom of aluminum that has been modified many times.
What do you think is the ideal covering??. I'm using vinyl lattice and removed the screen after Wilma. I use vines for shade pruning back during winter. Walls have only hardware cloth
What is the best heating system ??
And last what would be the ideal height?? At present it is 9 feet . Thanks very much gary

First of all, thanks for the welcome to all. Hopefully we can share and help/enable each other
along the way...

Gary, I currently have 2 wood framed (4x4 post at corners and spaced at 12 ft) and gabled
(about 30 inches) to allow the heat to flow up and the I use a fan to push it out of one end.
My structures are framed with 2x6 pt boards at top and bottom all around each structure and
bolted through with galvanized 3/8 bolts/nuts/heavy washers.

I chose wood because of the allowed flexibility as I wanted to be a forgiving structure
that will bend slightly and not break. This proved invaluable during Hurricane Wilma.
I lost the plastic and screen (next time I will removed both) and although the structure
had a slight lean it was easily straightened and tightened up and no worse for the for
hitting both edges of the hurricane eye.

Are you restricted by architectural considerations?
mine were just built to maximize space and as low cost as possible
and yet be strong enough for storms. I pretty much used a quadrille
note pad a pencil and ruler and came up
with my design. I also built my benches and put in the overhead automated
misting system.
I am planning to run underground electrical feed cable to both shade houses,
but it is still on the 'I wish I had time to this ' List.

What about privacy?
I have a mountain of areca palms around my lot (about 25 ft high) and the shade houses
cannot be seen other than from the back yard.

How many micro climates are you looking to incorporate?

What type of plants will you be housing?

What are the light requirements?

Continued from above.

I use 6 mil 4 year clear poly over 50 pct shadecloth latched to tracks around the top
frame. Please post pic of what you have now and I will do same. not familiar with pic
posting here yet, But give me a day or so and I will come around.

Heating in South Florida? In case of severe cold (below 40) and only if protracted
period indicated I would wrap around with poly and use a couple of electric ceramic heaters just to
bring up the temps to above 50.

Albert, I do love those newsletters! The next time you are there you should inroduce yourself. I am easy to spot... I'm 25, everyone else is, well... Older =0) Hope to see you there in the near future!

Gary, glad to see you are expanding! I guess you need more room for those bonsai & orchids =0)

-Ray-

Ray, I would say Alberta is somewhat older than 25, and there is a lot to learn from that lady.

Thank you, CJ.

Yes--I am three and a half times your age, Ray. I no longer drive at night, and am physically challenged, so getting to meetings is a treat. I may just surprise you one night! (If you have been a member prior to 2007, I was the little white haired biddy with the 4 wheel walker.)

Ben
Thanks for the tips How do you get by with using plastic?? One of my very early disasters was using it durind a cold spell.Worked great during the night >Went to work and came home at 5 and it was 140 degrees inside while the outside temp was around 60 lol Frost cloth has prevented both cold and overheating the next day but the piece is sooo large it's tough to store and worse over long periods of time it shreds at the folds just when you need it lol I have found shade screen more effective than shade cloth but has the drawback of collecting dust so over time
the light levels get too low.
Over the last several years I've been using passion flower vines so can be pruned back when necessary.. Use frost cloth only when temps below 35 with a space heater and allow the heat to escape.
Two years ago I started experimenting with heating my lily pool and running the water through the shadehouse
Works but not good enough .1500 watts kept the water warm but allowed the air to drop at only 35. Worked fine in the 40's
My hope is to build a weaather proof greenhouse rather than a shadehouse. But as you know heat is 100 times the problem of cold. I refuse to resort to air for 300 days a year lol.
As to pix I've never learned to post pix lol. Just picture a 12x25 aluminum screen room attacjhed to the house on two sides on the SE corner facing south.. The roof has diagonal vinyl lattice only covering while the walls have hardware cloth only .
My point in expanding it is to house both my epiphytes ,
my birds, lily pool waterfall. Am hoping to make sort of a "rainforest" rather than a holding area.
Some attention to "landscaping" naturally, a small table and chairs maybe a bench . Sort of like a "zoo" exhibit but on a MUCH smaller scale
What I want to accomplish is "downsize" my hobbies and combine them into a central location.
25x25 is probably too small but that's all the land I have lol. thanks gary

Ben, welcome aboard!!!!

Marci

Yes, I am deffinately sure I could learn TONS from Alberta! Alberta, sorry that I called you Albert in my last message =0) Also, I did not Join F.L.O.S. until mid 2007. It would be wonderful to see you there one night & pick your brain! Do you mind if I e-mail you from time to time?

-Ray-

Ray--no problem--I have been called worse than Albert and survived!

Please feel free to email me anytime. (It will be nice to have a young man in my life again, and the neighbors won't even know!) I may be physically deteriorating, but I like to think my mind is still fair pickin'. As for orchids, I still have a goodly number of assorted genera, but have never particularly cared for species. Pick away!