Caring for Orchids in the Home continue…

Kitchen

The next most popular room in the house for growing plants is the kitchen. Since it is a working area in common use it is natural that the room should be at a comfortable temperature and the steam created by cooking provides a good supply of humidity. However where gas is installed for cooking, as with heating, there may be trouble from the fumes. Unfortunately, because it is a’ working area, space is often limited in the kitchen but a room divider in a combined kitchen/dining room can be turned into a real and interesting feature of the room with a little indoor gardening. Here orchids can be used successfully with other plants to great advantage.

Sun lounge

Home extensions and sun lounges are a feature of many houses today and these provide light airy places where many plants can thrive in near greenhouse conditions. Popular features of these home leisure areas are fish pools and fountains, providing humidity and ideal settings for the larger house plants such as rubber trees, palms, pineapples and oranges, making an all year round sub-tropical indoor garden. Here the largest of the orchids, which would be oversized in the living room, can be grown in tubs.

Cellar

Excellent results can also be obtained by growing orchids in cellars of old houses, which have been successfully converted into complete growing rooms for orchids. The advantage here is that the environment created is wholly artificial and controllable. Although the installation costs are high, running costs are extremely low, with virtually no loss of heat. The walls and ceiling are first covered with polystyrene for insulation, and then lined with tin foil which reflects maximum light into the room. The plants are grown on a bench lit by tubular lights using special bulbs designed for plant growth. These are operated by a time switch giving the equivalent of daylight hours required, but at night, thus using off- peak electricity with considerable saving. Very often the heat given off by these lights is sufficient to make additional forms of heating unnecessary. A manual switch enables the grower to inspect the plants at any time of the day. Although this method of cultivation is successful, it issomewhat specialised, and it is only possible to grow a limited variety of plants under these conditions. Basically, depending upon the minimum temperature which is maintained, the types will be limited to those warm, shade loving plants which cannot tolerate direct sunlight.

It is possible to purchase ready-made greenhouse benches which can be installed in your cellar, as the amount of head room available is usually about the same as in a greenhouse. Alternatively, you can construct your own benches quite easily, tailor-made to fit the space available. In a standard bench the top will probably consist of galvanised iron or fibreglass trays 5-8 cm (2-3 in.) deep, which can be filled with gravel and kept moist.

The home-made version could consist of a shallow box lined with polythene. This type of bench is an essential part of cellar culture, as it is from here that the humidity will be created for the moist atmosphere so necessary for the health of the plants. The tray will collect the surplus water from watering and spraying of the plants and prevent spillage onto the floor.

The plants should be placed on upturned pots or saucers to avoid any direct contact with the water and the subsequent danger of them becoming overwatered or too wet at the roots. If the plants are of a uniform height, or made so by varying the height of the supporting pots, the tube lights can be made up into batteries attached to a wooden frame. These are suspended from the ceiling by pulleys so that the entire lighting system can be raised to allow inspection of the plants for watering and general attendance, and lowered to the most suitable height above the plants enabling the maximum use to be made of the lights. While the lights should be as close to the plants as possible (the distance will be determined by the tallest flower spike), they should not be so close that the heat generated causes damage or scorch to any part of the foliage or buds.

Ventilation is important to orchids wherever they are grown, and must be amply provided in the cellar to ensure a continuous supply of fresh air. To maintain a degree of freshness and keep a movement of air, a small electric fan can be used to play air over the top of the plants. This will assist in keeping the air fresh and at the same time will dry up excess water from the foliage after watering. It will also prevent the plants from overheating through contact with the lights. If windows are available, they should be opened for a complete change of air whenever the outside temperature is not so cold as to cause a draught or sudden drop in temperature. If the cellar has no windows, the door should be left open, but only for as long as the temperature can be maintained.

Because most cellars are below ground level, they are not directly affected by the extreme fluctuations of temperature outside. Overheating in summer or chilling in winter are therefore unlikely. The lighting equipment is usually sufficient to maintain an even temperature, making other forms of heating unnecessary, although this will depend upon the ratio of lights to volume of space, of course. Three or four tiers of shelving against the walls, each with its own battery of lights, in a cellar the size of a small room, will probably generate too much heat, making some form of extraction necessary.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
Caring for Orchids in the Home continue…

• Home Orchids: Caring and Feeding continue...
• Watering Orchids in the Home
• Orchids Indoor growing cases
• How to Choose your Conservatory Furnitures
• Care of Orchid foliage and flowers
• Home Orchids: Caring and Feeding
• Simple Garden Projects: Birdbaths and Fountain
• Caring for Orchids in the Home
• High Alti¬tude Orchids Odontoglossums and their allied hybrids
• Watering Orchids in the Home continue...