[kmarch]

In the short time I have been reading and posting on this forum, I have noticed quite a few posts where people are sharing information and advice about growing spaces, from windowsill, to Edwardian cases, to sun rooms and all the way up to greenhouses. So I thought there might be some interest in a thread dedicated to growing spaces where people can post pics of their spaces, share info, ask questions. I find I learn something new every time I visit someone's growing space. This thread will allow us to visit each others' growing spaces in a "virtual" sort of way.

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I'll get the thread started. I live in Melbourne Australia where the climate is somewhat mild, similar in many respects to some places in the southern US. During our winter the temps are around 40F at night and 60F during the day. Winters are fairly cloudy and wet with high humidity. Summers here are hot and dry, 60F+ at night and 85F+ during the day with low humidity (sometimes less than 10%).

The climate here allows me to have 2 spaces one indoors for my Paphs and warmer growing plants and one outdoors for the cool tolerant plants.

Sunlight here is intense and, depending on what you're growing, 50-70% shadecloth is used outdoors. My outdoors growing space gets no direct sunlight yet is broght enough to bloom Cymbidiums, Australian native Dendrobiums and Dockrilla, and a few other things. The first picture is of this outside growing space.

Outside I have to adjust my watering seasonally: in the summer at least twice a week (notice the trays under the Cymbidiums), in the winter about once a week sometimes less. The mounted orchids get soaked once a week in the summer with an almost daily misting to raise humidity, and get soaked about twice a month in winter with little misting.

Indoors I grow mostly Paphs and Coelogyne with a few other things. The second pic shows how I grow in trays in a window. I rotate trays to give the plants on the lower trays a bit more light. In summer I water twice a week and in winter once a week.

Light in the indoors is enough to bloom Cattleyas, Paphs, Coelogyne, and hopefully some Gongoras and Encyclias.

I only fertilize the outdoor plants during spring and summer.

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Take a moment and post some pics of your growing spaces and let us know how you grow your plants in our space.

Cheers,

-Kevin