Re: Inside Bon Vivant Nursery

I'm sort of curious about the misting. Are they misted from above?
We have found in our MG nursery that plants need to be watered individually at the pot level with a wand. When we started, one of the guys set up a spray system, but as the plants developed their 'canopy', very little water ever got to the pot. Rain is of little benefit on well developed plants. Watering the pots makes it a bit more labor intensive, but must be done.

We have two enclosed beds (6 timbers high) with 2.5 inch resin risers on the bottom for drainage. They are enclosed in the same manner you've used with pvc but we use bird netting. It's to keep bunnies out. Then we have an in ground bed surrounded by pvc covered by fencing. We also have a pot-in-pot setup that has worked very well, plus a few more beds. The inground plantings do fine with rain and spray.

Kitty
neIN, Zone 5
----- Original Message ----- From: "james singer" <islandjim1@verizon.net>
To: <gardenchat@hort.net>
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 5:23 PM
Subject: Re: [CHAT] Inside Bon Vivant Nursery


Like your misting system... Looks a lot like mine :)

On Jun 12, 2006, at 4:01 PM, Christopher P. Lindsey wrote:
You've all probably read my nursery trials and tribulations in amusement,
boredom, or annoyance over the past few months.

I'm here to make sure that it continues. :)

Since I didn't have enough room (or sun) in the back for my plants,
I ended up using the flat roof over my garage. I installed three
long storage tables and built a framework for two of them out of PVC,
covered them with shadecloth, installed a misting system over the top,
and then connected it all to a manifold that's controlled by my computer.

It's pretty much done now, so I'm torturing you even further by putting
some photos online:

Here's the first framework covered with shadecloth:

http://www.mallorn.com/~lindsey/nursery/rooftop/shadecloth1.jpg

The second one was the same height until today; I needed to add another
foot since the coneflowers were growing through it:

http://www.mallorn.com/~lindsey/nursery/rooftop/shadecloth2.jpg

The third shelves don't have any shadecloth yet, but will probably
get some:

http://www.mallorn.com/~lindsey/nursery/rooftop/nocloth.jpg

The first two shelves are on a timer-based watering system, but the
third one is still watered by hand. I left an opening for it in the
manifold though:

http://www.mallorn.com/~lindsey/nursery/rooftop/manifold.jpg

I should add that the pipe isn't that bent. It's partially because of the
lens that I was using. :) Another tip: PVC doesn't lose it's integrity
when exposed to UV light, but it *can* become more susceptible to stress
fractures. Painting it protects the plastic so that it can be exposed to
light.

Of course, there are some plants that just don't care about watering
systems at all:

http://www.mallorn.com/~lindsey/nursery/rooftop/cactus.jpg

I love Opuntia. I just dread the day that I have to package one up to
ship.

Chris

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Island Jim
Southwest Florida
27.0 N, 82.4 W
Hardiness Zone 10
Heat Zone 10
Minimum 30 F [-1 C]
Maximum 100 F [38 C]

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