Orchidarium shelf, self made (DIY).

Orchidarium shelf, self made (DIY)
(pictures of 24 October 2012)

Orchidarium shelf  DIY, the beginning
(pictures of 27 March 2012)

As always, space is tight and instead plants ... are never enough! After mounting the mini orchidarium I noticed that in my kitchen there was a lot of unused space, of course it was a bit high, and not really practical, but doable. Top of the refrigerator then there was just a nice space. So I recruited a volunteer. (!) At first I just wanted a simple shelf to better accommodate some poor Phalaenopsis in intensive care, in that corner does not come a lot of light, the window is two and a half meters far, a lamp was requested. I recycled an IKEA lamp built up with an energy saving light bulb 'Philips Tornado 23W 6500K cool daylight' for 12 hours a day with a timer-clock. The plants I settled ​​there were all a bit battered because saved in various garden shops for a few euro, after some time I started to think about how to provide them with a good air humidity ...

Energy-saving lamp to grow orchids, self-made.

Energy-saving lamp DIY, on the new mini orchidarium

Before I make decisions on how and how much light give to the mini orchidarium I studied a lot. Unfortunately, there are no universal answers, each plant has different light needs and every terrarium is in a location in the house that has, or not, the day light. For sure we have to know at least  the right "color" that light must have to be useful to our orchids, in fact using a wrong light even 2000 W would not have an significant effect! The light that activates photosynthesis, and is therefore useful to our plants to grow and flourish, is in the spectrum of blue and red, in short, it is recommended that you choose lamps with a color temperature of around 6400 K, combined with others around 2400 K, but the first would seem to be more effective. I finally decided! I bought 2 Philips Tornado cool daylight 6500 K, enlightening power 1450 Lumen.