It has been a while since my last updates. I was very busy with moving house; l am sure you guys can relate to this. Especially when you need to decide where the existing furniture should go and what new furniture should you buy, right? And for me, the most complicated part is to properly set up a place for all my Monsteras Collection. Keep reading as I will be sharing what I do to make it happen. :-)
The thing that I love the most about this new house is, big windows facing east. So, I am getting bright natural light into the house. Sounds fantastic, right? But I didn't realize that the windows were not tinted. So, we are getting unfiltered light into our home; The UV light is harmful to our skin and, infrared light increases the temperature in the house. Unfortunately, the mover has placed my giant monstera and my philodendron Congo Rojo next to the window. And when I realized it, it was too late, some of the leaves had already burnt. Then, I learnt that the morning sun started to get very harsh at 10 am. So. be careful not to expose your indoor plants to direct sunlight from 10 am onward unless your windows are tinted.
So, in building my greenhouse, there are a couple of important points to be checked: temperature, humidity, and light level. I have to make sure these parameters in my greenhouse are good before moving all my Monstera Albos, Monstera Thai Constellations, and Monstera Adansonii Albos into it. I can't risk them getting burnt or destroyed.
Yes, you read it right. I built myself a greenhouse. Do you know why? Because my partner told me that, he doesn't want to live in a jungle, and too many plants will not go well with the house decor concept. Haha. I am sure some of you can relate to this. So I was like, ok!!! I will have my greenhouse for all my plants!
That is where my new journey begins with my greenhouse. So, I got a contractor to build me a greenhouse, and I wanted all white because if I go for black, it will not match the rooftop furniture concept. So, yes, that is the 1st challenge I get in building my greenhouse. Sounds funny, but it's true.
So, the picture above is my greenhouse, isn't it beautiful? I placed a wifi thermometer & humidity sensor in the greenhouse. The sensor is connected through wifi and gives me live updates on my phone on the temperature & humidity readings recorded in my greenhouse. I also placed some "Indoor Test Plants" in there to see how they react to the greenhouse environment. After a week of monitoring, I noticed that the temperature would normally go above 35°C after 10 am, and during very hot days, it rose up to 42°C from 11 am to 2 pm. Then, the temperature will start to go down again after 2 pm. And the test plants are not doing very well. Some of their leaves turned brown and fell off. So, I tried to google for information about greenhouses in tropical climates. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any article teaching or explaining how and what needs to be done in setting up a greenhouse in Tropical Climates. So, again, I have to learn everything on my own.
LIGHT LEVEL
As you know, my greenhouse is all white, and for the roof, the contractor used clear UV plastic sheets with white netting (MEIRYO) as the 2nd layer. The Meiryo sheet act as a UV and Infra-Red reflector, which should help in reducing heat getting into the greenhouse. Unfortunately, that's not enough. So, I have no other option but to use "black netting" as an additional layer to shade some of the heat from getting into my greenhouse in order to bring the temperature down. But, the question is, how much shading do I need? There are 50%, 70% and 90% shading available in the market, and I have decided to go with 50% to start with. The reason being is I do not want to block too much light from getting into my greenhouse. I love variegated plants, but unfortunately, their photosynthesis efficiency is not great due to the lack of chlorophyll on the variegated part. So, the light level is very crucial for them. If I shade too much, I will risk the white variegation to start browning, and there is a possibility that the plants will begin to produce more green in adapting to the low light condition to survive, and I will lose that lovely variegation.
TEMPERATURE
Another thing I added to the greenhouse in bringing the temperature down is installing three solar-powered ventilation fans. The good thing about these solar-powered fans is that they are obviously green energy, and they are easily set up and installed. And these fans are powered directly from the solar panel without batteries, and they will only work when there is sunlight. The brighter and hotter the sun is, the faster these fans will spin. So, it works perfectly for my greenhouse as the function of these fans is to cool the greenhouse down when the weather is hot.
HUMIDITY
So, with the black net shading and 3 ventilation fans, I managed to bring the temperature down to a max 38°C. But that isn't enough, as when the weather gets hot, the humidity level goes down to below 40%, and I am trying to aim to have more than 50% humidity. Actually, 40% humidity is good, but it is just my personal preference based on my own experience. I observed that all my Monstera Albos do very well and grow faster in bright light with a humidity level above 50%. Besides, if I increase the humidity level in my greenhouse, it will also help to bring the temperature down a bit more. Then, I decided to install a misting system. Well, that's another topic I will be sharing with you how I choose my misting system. There are many types of misting systems available in the market. They come with a vast price range, with and without pumps, multiple sizes of misting nozzles and water tubes, high pressure or low-pressure system. What are the differences these items do or affect your misting system? These are questions in my head before I can decide what to buy. Of course, I have no reference other than reading through what I found on google and not many articles available about the small set up of greenhouse. So, I have no choice but to try and error. I will share more details in my next chapter on this topic.
So, after successfully installing the misting system, I managed to bring the temperature in my greenhouse down by another 2°C which gave me what I was aiming for, max 36°C. Yay! Then, after a couple of days, I started to see progress in growth on my test plant, and I am very happy about it. It means, My greenhouse is ready!
In my next topic, I will be sharing the outcome from what I have done here and how my Monstera Collection reacts to their new home. I will also share where I got my wifi temperature & humidity sensor and the solar-powered ventilation fans. Stay tuned, guys.
If you have any questions or comments about the greenhouse, please comment below, and I will try to answer them.
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