Those are beautiful, so many in bloom! That pink one on the center top is magnificent!

I bought some cheap scrap acrylic and plan to make risers for the back rows. And I found some plastic canvas mesh so I may try to make leaf supports.

I think at first the plants will look lonely and sparse because most of them are baby plants. But I'm planning for their future and am not going to stick additional plants in just because there is space right now, because those babies are going to grow soon.

I have some minis, so I think that in the front with only two standards there may be room for one or two minis.

Also, the number depends upon your lighting set up.

Could you please share what your setup is?

My fixtures are old time shop lights with two 48" t12 bulbs. This is the type in which the bulbs are close together so light is concentrated in the center. A more advantageous set up would separate the bulbs by six inches or so. Still, I seem to get sufficient lighting over the entire shelf. It helps that the room also receives decent window light, at least part of the year.

Terri

Your plant rack is so pretty Terrilou!!

Lucille can you please post a pic when you finish your risers?

Yes. I have some commercial made risers as well, but since I wanted the back row on each shelf to be on a higher level, making some myself was the only feasible answer.

Thad Scaggs from FL keeps different height reservoirs - puts them in alternating pattern - so the outer leaves can overlap - but never touch. He grows amazing big AVs this way - and probably increases the capacity of the shelf 30% this way.

Can see how that would work and that would work on my console table.

I've slowly been switching out my larger cover pots for empty decorative 3-wick candle jars. The wicked pots actually sit on the edge of the glass above a 1/2" of water in the bottom. They take much less room than cover pots and look nice. The risers would work well for those candle jars.

I just can't picture how to make a DIY acrylic riser. Would like to know how you're doing it Lucille.

A more efficient use of space would be to have a series of small individual risers. This would be similar to what Irina mentioned Scaggs does with his different sized reservoirs.

First, decide what kind of riser you want. The most common are the one level risers that look like an upside down 'U'. You can make multi level risers, and long risers, but the easiest one to do is the individual upside down 'U' which needs two vertical pieces and one horizontal piece.

Second, decide what sort of size range you would be happy with. There are tiny mini risers only an inch tall, and big heavy art display risers several feet tall. I decided that I wanted my risers 6-8 inches wide and 2-4 inches tall.

Third, assemble your materials: Either a table saw, or a coping saw (this is what I chose) clamps to hold the piece you are cutting on a table, and right angle clamps to hold the pieces together while the glue is setting. Buy glue, I use IPS/Weldon 16 but there are other acrylic glues out there.

Fourth, go shopping. There is a lot of leeway here. If you are willing to pay a little more you can get rid of the cutting process completely and just glue pieces of satisfactory size together. But acrylic/polycarbonate can run into $$ particularly if you are planning to make risers for the back row of every shelf you have, and especially if you want to add an extra piece on the bottom for stability, closing the 'U', that could mean making 40-60 risers.

On Ebay companies sell off pretty cheap entire lots of acrylic/polycarbonate scrap where, for instance, they were making a bunch of somethings for a client and there was a machining error and the pieces were not suitable. This means that the pieces might be irregular and need to be trimmed somewhat with a table saw or coping saw. They also sell 'cut-offs' which are the scraps left after they cut a project for a client. Don't get carried away by 'strong' quarter or half inch acrylic, that is really spendy, you need to hold up one African Violet, not the Brooklyn Bridge.

So you trim your pieces (for each riser, two identical side pieces and one horizontal top piece), and depending on how many clamps you have, (you will probably only be able to do one or two at a time) brush the edges with acrylic glue and clamp them at right angles, the top and side of the 'U', and once the glue has set, do the other side of the 'U'.

Acrylic and polycarbonate can be drilled (it is a skill, practice on scraps, wear goggles) which means you can drill the top of your riser and have the pot sit directly on the riser with the wick going down through the drilled hole and into your reservoir. Easier to drill first before you assemble and glue your riser.

If you want multi level risers, instead of the last 'U' piece going down like the other one, it goes up, then another horizontal piece and finally your longer back piece. But before you plan on multi level risers, calculate the total height between that shelf and the one above it, then the heights of the proposed risers and the plant itself, plus the space taken by the light, make sure you are not going to exceed the space you have.

That all makes sense, Lucille, thank you for explaining it. What do you put in as a Search term on Ebay for these plastic scrap pieces? When you use the saw on them, aren't they kind of ragged-looking on the edges? If you decide to make them, would you mind posting some pics? I'm thinking the risers need some kind of lip on them to keep the pots from tipping off when you water them.

I will post pics .I anticipate receiving the scrap this week and starting production next weekend.

The riser will be larger than the pot, especially since I am watering via reservoir no lip is needed.

As for finding the materials, that can be a tedious search, but my search used the words: acrylic, polycarbonate, sheet,lot

So far, I have avoided the need for risers by mixing my smaller plants with the larger ones. Veery low tech but it works for me.

I think I have been subconsciously refusing the prospect of any enabling devices. I think I may need to go to AVA classes!

Dviolet1, the scrap pieces destined to be the top of the risers arrived today. I have included a picture below, so that you realize just how much imagination one must have to envision something useful from a scrap you might see. The blue and white paper is a protector, it will come off revealing the clear polycarbonate underneath.

The black vertical line is my cut line, and amazingly, for the whole project, that is the only cut I will have to make for each set of riser pieces. Amazingly also, there is a hole machined right in the center for the wick to go through as the pot sits on top of the completed riser. If the other box arrives as scheduled, I will have enough scrap to make 55 risers. That is enough so that I might consider making some taller risers so there are three heights of plants on each shelf.

Jeff, I'm glad your low tech works for you. For me, I love working with acrylic and design, so my riser project is something I look at as fun.

So creative. OT: Sound like you have a lot of experience with working with this stuff. If so, is there anything else you make with it? (You have an art background maybe?)

No art background, but I have worked a lot with acrylic over the years making things that I wanted. Ordinary stuff like stands and hinged storage cubes, but also useful stuff: years ago I had birds called lories, and made some large acrylic cages for them.

Since I moved into my tiny apartment, I no longer have all my power tools (except a drill) but fortunately these risers are not going to need anything like that.

Everyone is different in what they want from their violets and other plants. For me, giving them enough space and displaying them on slightly different levels will let me appreciate and honor each one for its own beauty. When I look at pictures of other people's violets, it is so much more pleasing to my eye if they leave a few inches between plants.

I am not planning on buying many more, I would like to appreciate and be thankful for what I have.

Things are not working out like I planned. Between a visit from the grand baby (more important than anything) and other projects, the riser project looks like it might take several weeks. Plus some new houseplants have to go on the shelves. So when I set up the shelves this morning and put plants on them, it is already crowded. How could that happen?

Those durn violets grow faster than grandbabies!