I need to take some new pics.

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Below is the HFGH.

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Greenhouser, when were those pictures taken? nice maters...I'm hoping to grow some in my GH too (you know the one that is STILL not put together yet)

Here's a few of mine......I just took these today to update my album. If you click on 'My Page' there is a link there to photobucket and some more of my pictures.

Looking in the front doors......
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hanging orchids.........
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back/north wall........
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Good Luck with your GH!! Have fun!!

Pcan, yours looks great. Are you sappose to have holes in your orchid pots? Better air circulation?

Well.......holes in pots? In Florida I would very highly recommend it....LOL. But yes, here the humidity is more often than not, high. In summer these orchids are soaked daily early in the morning (overhead watering system) and they need to dry by nightfall (this is their natural cycle in nature wet/dry/daily). So the holes in pots, the open baskets, and the mounts make that possible. Many of the orchids you see in pots and baskets are in straight lava rock. So yeah, lots of air getting to those roots.
Thanks for your nice comment...o:)
Pat..............

The ones of the HFGH were from last year and this year. The Rion pics are from this past fall.

Keep working at it. You'll get it together yet. :)

Pcan

That makes sense with the holes in the pots. We don't get much humidity here, so I haven't seen that before. I love your hoya. I have a few, they are so cool. I just got one from Logees, that gets huge blooms. I can't wait for blooms. That's going in the greenhouse, too.

Wow, I am so impressed with all the photos of the insides of your greenhouses. It looks like most of you are using the closet racking for shelves.

In additional I love seeing all the plants everyone is growing. Nice!

Pscan - I really like the background you used for all your orchids. It makes it look so natural and inviting. I also like all the different types of potting you are using, the baskets hanging on the wall and in one photo a branch with what appears to be an airoid (sp?). When we visited Florida several years ago we were amazed at the the plants growing from everyones trees.

Thanks for sharing all the photos. They are beautiful and ya'all are enablers eh? ;)

Tj

Ohiojay,

In your third photo you have what looks to be a tree with very fine leaflets on one leaf. What is it? It almost looks like a Twisty Baby Locust I have growing here. Also, in the photograph below you have a white thing with small holes in it that hangs over a plant what is that?

Eveyones place looks great. Such great ideas.

Ladylotus...That tree is a tamarind. One of my favorites in the greenhouse. Everything in the greenhouse is primarily rare tropical fruit trees. There's a few flowering plants used as ground cover and accent but they are few and far between. The white thing with holes is just a plastic container that I have loosely covering my humidistat. I have a fogging system to keep my humidity very high.

Pcan...nicely done. Almost looks like walking into a store seeing a professional display.

SB...forgot to mention how good your papaya is looking. You really have the papaya touch. I just don't have any luck with papayas...lost the Hovey. I'm gonna order some seeds and try a different soil mix.

Lots of great stuff to look at here! (Greenhouser, I want all the spiky plants in your third photo for Christmas, please.)

HereÂs my layout for my 10x12 HFGH (StressbabyÂs tip about Paint has saved you from my pencil scrawls.)
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HereÂs how the benches on the south wall looked before I moved in the plants.
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HereÂs the same wall, with plants. My GH is not full of lovely huge tropicals with huge leaves and exotic fruits like the rest of you...just smaller prickly plants with bad attitudes! The thing that looks like a flying TV in the upper left corner is a hanging box that holds my thermostats for the fan and heaters. I covered it with scraps of Aluminet to shield the thermostats from the sun. It looks funny, but it seems to work, and it keeps the thermostats out of my way.
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Here's the north wall, with plants
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Close up of some of the north side plants, Echeverias and other non-spiny succulents that like a bit less sun.
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My potting/sink area on the north side. I did a mosaic countertop, using up scrap tiles, and had lots of fun doing it.
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ThereÂs a hole in the center so I can brush potting soil into a plastic bin below. The removable cover is just a metal trivet from Hobby Lobby, painted.
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Sheri

That looks great Mudhouse. I like the benches and sink area. Good job.

Mudhouse, your setup is great. I love succulents and cactus. They have such cool flowers. I'm building an underwater scene garden with succulents and rocks. Your blog was so helpful in the building of our greenhouse. We breezed right through the construction. With a few minor boo boos. Thanks so much, all your hard work is much appreciated.

Thanks orchiddude!

Pelicanhead, thanks also, and I'm so glad the blog helped. Much of that is just passing on good tips from others here. I've seen photos of some great underwater scenes built with succulents! In fact, I just found some artificial tropical fish at Goodwill...really cool ones...and I'm gonna hang them in the greenhouse above the plants. I thought they'd look great in there, but I'm sure my family will think I'm crazy (again.)

Sheri,

I LOVE your setup. Your potting bench is stunning! You did the mosaic? Great job. Everything looks so neat and well planned.

I am very intrigued with your succulent collection. Very impressive. What are the lowest temperatures your succulents will take?

This might be way off topic, so I apologize ahead of time. But some of the photos above are so crammed with plants that I'm wondering how you water them? Do you take a garden wand and just spray them making sure you hit each plant? Or do you sift through the jungle and take one plant at a time watering each plant individually?

Sheri,
I also agree that you have done a beautiful job.

Is there anyone out there that is using their GH for growing ONLY THINGS THEY EAT? I would be interested to see how they would set up their GH.

1eye

Ladylotus, I'm aiming for about 45° as a minimum but many of my succulents would take less, so 40° would not worry me either. I will fine tune that as the electric bills come in (!) and as I get my courage up.

I don't like to get water on my plants if possible, they seem to do better if I just water the soil. I use a watering can with a long skinny spout to aim better. I do have to shift the Echeveria pots around as I water. Watering relaxes me and I just poke along, taking time to make sure I water each one enough to let water come out the bottom. That's also when I inspect the plants for problems and pull off dead leaves, etc. I get in my own little "zen zone" when watering, LOL. The greenhouse gives me much easier access to my plants than I've ever had before...it's great to have them at waist height or higher. I am getting too creaky to fuss with many plants on the ground...that's when I tend to miss problems.

Ole dawg, good question. You won't find edibles in my GH or garden. If I grew edibles I'd have to cook them, and I'm about the worst cook you ever met! ;-)

Ole Dawg, 99% of the occupants are rare tropical fruit trees. Some have been planted directly into the ground while the majority are in containers...which get moved around all the time. Position depends upon size and shade needs. Sometimes I even try and position them in a particular manner.

Ladylotus,
Since all of mine require high humidity, they are getting wet at times anyway. In the warmer months, I will take the hose with a shower wand and hit the individual plants in this manner. Now that it is colder, I store water in a 32 gallon trash can and water from that. The water is then at least same temp as the greenhouse. All water is first being filtered thru a chlorine filter. Watering is a chore in the summer months...a lot of plants need watering everyday. Now, they are all about once a week except for a few.

Nice pics and layouts all. Good job. You folks with the smaller HFGH setups or similar have done an amazing job with layout, organization, and your use of shelves and tables. I need to start incorporating a shelving system in mine.

What beautiful GHs you all have, loaded with tropical plants and trees!

I'm afraid mine is much more utilitarian, used mostly for propagating perennials and shrubs from seed, division or cuttings. Thousands go for my yearly plant sale but lots are for myself/relatives/friends.
I do overwinter some tropicals in a cutback state, such as bananas, elephant ears, agapanthus, geraniums, a margarite daisy standard etc. and a small collection of cactus and succulents.
I would really like to add to the cactus/succs collection as they bloom beautifully in there, enjoying the winter conditions of 50* at night and 80-85* on a sunny day.
The high ceiling allows me to start lots of hanging baskets in the spring for use at home.

I got a fulltime, permanent job a couple weeks ago so will begin to phase out the plant sale and concentrate more on propagating things that interest myself instead of devoting so much time and space to sale material.
I collected some redbud tree seeds yesterday and will grow those this winter to add to the 9 redbuds I already have.

Benches against the south glass wall.
Cactus and succs are kept on an upper, floating shelf.

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Potting table and water barrel against north wall.

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Tool storage and heat bench against north wall.
Heat bench has since been replaced by a 3 tiered growlight unit that I put my heat mats on and can leave lights on as needed.

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mudhouse

I'm drooling over your collection of succulents. I have about half of mine in the sun-room and the rest, the larger ones, are out in the greenhouse.

Wyndyacre, I love your photos because they are such good proof that utilitarian spaces can still be drop-dead beautiful. I'm hoping the lower gh winter temps will trigger more blooms in my C&S too. They never got very cool when I wintered them in my house. I already have one that is blooming for the first time (hooray.)

Is your floating C&S shelf above the south benches supported by thin wire cables from the rafters? It looks to be held up by magic...I can't see shelf brackets, but I see you have a lot of weight up there!

Thanks greenhouser. It's nice you have a sunroom on your house to enjoy part of your collection indoors. My house is like a ranch-style cave. :-(

I finally got my greenhouse set up. Although it is a work in progress.

Before
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After
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pelicanhead are those brugs I see potted up ? Barb

Pelicanhead-your GH is looking great. Love the totem against the back wall too. Is that your own work or from an artist?
I see that you are already stacking pots on pots. hehe Will soon be wishing you had a bigger GH like most of the rest of us. LOL

Here's some closeups of my hanging shelf, Mudhouse.

It is one 12ft length of the ubiquitous wire closet shelving supported by two 12ft pieces of galvanized electrical conduit piping. The conduit is hung from 4 pieces of aircraft cable (available at HD). Not very thick gauge as you can see but very strong. The cable is looped over thick shafted screws with large heads that have been screwed into the wooden joists. The cable is held together with cable clamps.

It is very strong...as you noted it supports a tremendous amount of weight (I'd be afraid to add it up!) of clay and porcelain pots and has been installed for 5 years.

I took these photos this evening....

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The mammillaria gets smothered by pink blooms. The echiverias in the bonsai dishes are babies I started from leaves last winter. My one precious agave (hard to find and expensive here) I won at a silent plant auction a couple years ago. The barrel hasn't bloomed for me yet but I've had others that did when left outdoors for the summer.

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This is a great thread - I just love looking at everybody's houses and all the great ideas. And, I owe a special thanks to the 'cactus people' for posting their pictures. See, I've been telling my husband that I _NEED_ a 'cactus house' in the form of the 8 x 6 HF. I've been telling him what a pain in the butt it is to have to haul them in and out of the Florida rain. How the 'orchid house' is just to wet for them, to humid, and about all my cactus/succulent troubles in general. So far he's said "why donate an entire GH to - cactus?" ........ I tell him about the beautiful flowers, he looks at me like I'm nuts. WELL .......I called him in and showed him all the beautiful pictures here.......he said "oh wow"....
He also said ..."well ....ok, look for the little house to go on sale and we'll go pick one up, then we'll have it here".........
DANG!!! that was pretty easy!!! with all you guys help!! So Thanks!! All of the pic's are wonderful!!

Needless to say I'll be doing a lot of HF website checking......lol...........

Pat.........

This is a good thread, Pelicanhead, and thanks for starting it. Your greenhouse looks great. Isn't it exciting to have plants in there? I love the totem pole too. Can't wait to see how yours progresses!

Wyndyacre, thank you for taking the good photos. The EMT is a good idea for stiffening that shelving. I have eyed that steel cable in the stores but have never used it. I love how little space it take up in between your plants...and visually unobtrusive too, but strong. NOW all I need are some nice heavy wooden rafters overhead...how great you have those to hang weight from. Great use of that space.

I see several plants on that shelf I would happily snatch if you looked in the other direction. I wonder if your Agave is Agave americana variegata? I have the plain Agave americana all over my yard (really too much of it, pups like mad.) They get nearly 5' tall around here. Look out!

Here is how they looked with snow on them last January (a rare sight for us.)
Sheri
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Rosepedal, my brugs froze last winter. Maybe you are seeing my plumeria seedlings?
Wyndyacre, The tiki was made by my husband. He's made several hundred of them, each one different. It's watching over the evil spirits. I can see where I'll be wanting a bigger greenhouse. I still have to put my hibiscus, and a few other potted tropicals in there when it gets colder.
Sheri, it is so much fun putting the plants in. I'm sure I'll be out there fine tweeking it all winter.

Pelicanhead, WOW, your husband does beautiful work. That makes the tiki even more special to have in your greenhouse. Maybe it will keep evil insects away, in addition to evil spirits!

Pat, hooray for a second greenhouse! Are you close to a HF store? Our local HF store has the 6x8 greenhouse on sale right now for $299 (through Dec 26.) I think the website sales often don't correspond with the store sales, so you might call the store closest to you. I don't want you to miss your chance, LOL.

I've seen Harbor Freight coupons for sale on eBay lately too, 15% off, good through the end of the year.

Just in case your good husband needs more convincing about the cactus idea, here are a few more of mine. :-)
Sheri

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You guys are making me homesick for california. I went out there this past july and grabbed tons of cactus cuttings. Sherry I am so envious you can grow them in your yard and they do get huge. My pops has them growing everywhere in his yard also. Well he did until the fire destroyed the whole property. He is a true gardener though and like a little kid he says he now has a blank slate to start over again. He is so excited for new plants...... I love everyones cactus....... Nice work everyone. Pat you are lucky. One day I hope I can talk my betterhalf into another one, but not right now with this one going. LOL

Oh those are just beautiful MH. Those flower pictures WILL push him right over the edge...LOL. I think he was thinking - "cactus - those lumpy bumpy little things that just sit there and do nothing. Why go to the trouble of building a GH for - that". But, the pictures here have turned him around....LOL. I'm about to check with my local HF store and E-bay too - thanks for that info. I've got a million ideas running around in my head. I've already got the thing built and moved into....LOL. Wyndy if you and GH'er and PHead wake up in the morning and find some of your plants (plus the tiki) missing it was me and Sheri.....LOL...........
Thanks again everybody!!!

Mudhouse-That's it! Your photos have driven me to want to collect more C and S. What is the bottom right one with the gorgeous clear orange flowers? Do you move your C/S outside in the summer? Do you hang out in the cactus forum? I might have to spend some time there.

I wish I could find some nice named varieties of C/S here. Really, all that are available are big box store unnamed ones. All I know my echiverias as are, "the blue one, the green one and the dark red one". :( But they do so nicely in my GH and really grow well with the specific conditions I can provide.

The agave just was a little pup with no label when I bid on it at a Garden Club silent auction. I paid 50 cents. :) It seems no one else wanted it...silly people! Now it is about 8" tall and has 2 more pups. I could only *WISH* that it would grow 5' tall!

I have 5 or 6 clumps of Prickly Pear growing in my alpine/gravel bed outdoors. There is a variety that is actually native here and grows wild in Pt Peelee National Park which is the most southerly tip of Canada in Ontario.
They don't get tall here but form spreading, low growing mounds, blooming clear yellow in late May/June. They kind of deflate and lay on the ground for winter, then plump up again in the spring. They propagate easily by sticking an "ear" in the ground.

Barb, sorry to hear your Pops lost property in a fire. To me, California would be like Gardening Heaven. Those folks can have such fabulous gardens, what a heartbreak to lose it.

Wyndyacre, the orange-flowered one is Rebutia muscula. You can actually pet it, the spines are very soft! My c/s have all been outside in the summer but I have two problems there... one is damage from birds (Thrashers specifically) and the other is harsh sun that sunburns the plants easily. So, I hope to try to keep most of them in the gh year round, even in the hot summer, IF I can keep it cool enough.

We have a lot of naturally occurring Prickly Pear (several types) and Cholla cactus in the yard, and I'm slowly adding other cold hardy types to an outdoor cactus garden. Some cactus folks don't like any Prickly Pear types because they think they're common and wicked, but I love those tough plants. Most of my neighbors have removed all the native vegetation from their yards...ours is one of the few remaining ugly brown prickly yards.

I have not had time yet to get addicted to the C&S forum here (I'm sure I could!) I'm not really good with Echeveria, but I know some types. I'd be happy to try to help you ID some of yours (I actually get lots of my plants from big box stores too!) I think your dark red one that's blooming might be Echeveria 'Black Knight'. I'm still not having much luck with the GW email system, but you can email me at sales@guadalupeforge.com. :-)

Pat, looking forward to updates! Go get 'em!
Sheri

Wow, I'm drooling. Everyone's greenhouses look so awesome! We're still having trouble holding temps in ours, but I've put most of what I want in there. The rest I'll keep indoors until we're sure it'll hold heat. I especially love the pics of the 10x12 HFGH's since that's what I'm working with.

Hi Everyone,
I love all your plants, what great work. Here are some pics of my california cuttings I got from my pops yard when I was there. Anyone know the id of the last picture? thanks for the info. Barb

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Barb, I think that's an Aeonium, but I don't know which one. I don't have many. They are odd for me since they're winter growers, and stay dormant in hot summer temps, not wanting much water. When fall comes I get them into the best light I can and start watering a bit more often (most of my plants are the opposite and like to go dormant in winter.) My grumpy Aeoniums are starting to "wake up" now and grow new leaves. Weird, huh?

Plants from friends or family always mean the most!
Sheri

Not exactly on topic, but since we were discussing cactus I can't resist posting a photo that includes my prickly pear in the alpine bed. Notice the killdeer that chose to nest on the gravel amongst the flowers. :)

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Oh my gosh, that is just beautiful. What a lovely bed...the colors of the plants are perfect together too. I would happily nest there myself...smart killdeer! It's lovely.

That is like out of a magazine....... You are good at plant combinations. Just beutiful wyndyacres. Sherry knowing they came from my pops is very special to me yes you are right. Barb

I love all the cactus and succulents. Since we are on the subject. Here's a pic of the undersea garden we are building, we need more rocks and plants

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Wow, that's a large area! When you mentioned an undersea garden, I pictured a small bed. That will be wonderful. The way it's sloped will make it quite a view when it's finished.

I'm so jealous of you folks in southern California. Such a huge number of wonderful plants will grow year round there...and reach amazing sizes. I'm glad you are able to make good use of your great climate and growing conditions with such a large project!

Cool Phead.!!!!.....keep us updated in pic's OK...??...

That is a great photo Wyndy!!! That's just beautiful!! I'm going to put that in my picture frame slide show thingy my son got me as soon as I get it out of the box and figure it out!! I thought it would be fun to show you what's just out side my yard.........150 ft. behind my house.....hehe....she sleeps?/rests here most days..................look for teeth......shes' there....lol......
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and a little futher down in the swamp another 50 ft or so......he sat right there......
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OMG pcan, that's awesome.

WHOA Pat...you mean you really have an alligator living there full time, that close to your yard? What incredible habitat photographs, both of them. So...this alligator living there is... normal? Acceptable? Wouldn't she, um, eat pets? Wow...!

Hmmm.........does she live there? Well, she's there a lot. She's about 6 foot long, a baby..lol. The only problem with her was a while ago .....she drug a dead pig (wild bore) up there ......and ........well, the smell went away after a while LOL.
The United States Gov. owns the river swamp (thank God), it's working alive with Game Wardens and they don't play. They haul you straight to jail for "harassing" those animals. That's why I don't even be back in there moving dead pigs around...LOL..............
Would she eat pets? You BETYA!!! In a New York minute! We have very strong fences here with very small mesh (keeps them out, my little dogs in) and I am double fenced from the swamp. I've had very tiny turtles hatch back there, get confused and crawl into my Koi pond on my patio. I have a net to dip them out and haul them down to the river. You look a little panicked there MH...LOL. I was born here, lived right here most of my life and it's part of life really. You learn about the danger, what to do, not to do, how , why, when and where. You grow a healthy RESPECT for - Mother Nature. I'm glad she's there, her and all of her swamp mates .

......I don't know, the swamp is a wonderful, beautiful, magical place. Being here, there ........maybe all is not well with the world, but at least for this river swamp things are still ...OK........

Have you figured out??? Pat got a new camera.......lol.........to many buttons........I'm confused.........refuse to read instructions.....

that's boar ....wild boar...

Pelicanhead:

Here is my interpretation of a (Small-Scale) Undersea Garden in a container.

This was inspired by Paul James' "Gardening By The Yard" - an episode shown earlier this year. As soon as I saw it, I ran RIGHT out and bought the succulents and pot and threw this together!

Oh, and quick question: Does your Hubbie, the Tiki Carver, make stuff to sell? I am a complete-and-total Tiki Addict!

You can see "part" of my Addiction if you scroll thu my Garden Pages. (The Addiction has "grown" since the last pics I'd posted! In fact, UPS just delivered a new Tiki today!!!)

IMQTPI's Garden Page

If your DH has Tikis for sale (for not utterly ridiculous prices, of course!), I would be MOST interested!

To contact me, click on the 'My Page' link and I think there's an option to "Send an email" (Mudhouse figured it out, anyway!)

Anyway, my Undersea Garden is here (this is my first attempt at embedding an image in GW from Photobucket, so bear with me if I screw it up!)

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Worst case, I'll post a link below........

-Nancy

Here is a link that might be useful:

That is neat with the wildlife. I would be out there everyday. IMPTQI love your undersea planter. This has been the best thread of all times.......

Nancy, that Undersea Garden is just too cute! Very Clever!