Yes, I'm so Happy! 2012

[fermi de Sousa]

I'm very happy as the frame for the "new" Shade house is finally being made into a real Shade house!
Here's our friend Michael starting work on the base. He's wanting a change in career and we're happy to pay him to do the work [we would've made a hash of it!]

And after 40^oC temperatures already this year we really need it to be completed soon!
Yesterday the baseboards were going in to make the floor level [we'd never have thought of that!]


Happy, happy, happy!!

cheers
fermi

[Anthony Darby]

40^oC! 20^oC is what we're getting at the moment! Kids not impressed with their summer holidays so far!

[Hoy]

Well, most people here would be glad if the temp was 20^oC. I have experienced 35^oC here in Norway but that is extraordinary! Abroad I've been to Cyprus and been relatively fine in 42^oC but I prefere 25^oC

[art600]

 It all depends on the humidity.  I visited two of the 'Furnaces of China' Wuhan and Nanjing where temperatures in the summer are over 40C - I was not uncomfortable as it was a dry heat.

Here in England temperatures of 25C in summer - rare but possible - cab be unpleasant becaus of the humidity.

[Lesley Cox]

Same here, humidity is the problem. Anthony will have noticed that most days Alexandra in Central Otago is the hottest place in the country, into the 30s and will get warmer as the summer goes on but the air is dry so it's quite bearable. Auckland and Tauranga are both humid as it rains a lot there even at this time of year. My climate is more like that of Alexandra, being over Saddle Hill from Dunedin so even though everyone in the country assumes Dunedin is close to the Antarctic, we frequently have summer temps in the 30s here, if only occasionally, in the city itself. While much of the upper South Island and the North Island have had non stop rain and some appalling flooding, I am crying out for rain, even a mm or two would be very welcome.

Of course Alex can be the coldest place in winter but still nothing like north or central Scotland.

[Anthony Darby]

I prefer heat, that's why we always went in that direction during our summer holidays.

[TC]

Fermi
For members in Scotland, could you explain the concept of "a shade house" ?   As we seem to live in perpetual shade maybe we could do with a "light house" - not the maritime variety !!

[fermi de Sousa]

Tom,
with the summers we get an "Alpine-house" would be the equivalent of a glass oven! With temperatures over 40^oC at times we really need shade more than light! At least during the summer.One friend suggested putting the shade-cloth over our whole house as well to help keep us cool - we opted for a portable air-conditioner instead!  During winter the frost is damaging enough to defoliate some plants even under shade-cloth!
cheers
fermi

[Lesley Cox]

So you could live in upper North Island but have a summer place in Central, like Annabel Langbein. Have you come across her yet? Central has all the advantages too, of apricots, cherries, peaches and all the rest, straight off the trees. Nothing better. Also the best climate in NZ for oncos and the more difficult junos. And the hills smell of thyme, and there's some decent (Plunket Shield and one day) cricket there too. OK, so I like the place.

[Lesley Cox]

My ideal shade house would be made of wooden 2" laths separated by an inch of space. It was like this when we lived at Lindisfarne (local, not UK) and was the best I ever had for primulas, meconopsis and many other cool-loving plants. I remember having a hundred or so P. reidii both blue and white in flower at once, wonderful sight and overpowering scent which filled our whole 2 acres of garden. Of course it had to be watered but the cooler atmosphere and protection from the sun were what did the trick for such plants. I prefer laths to shade cloth because with the latter the shade is constant whereas with laths it moves as the sun moves, making for a dappled shade which plants seen to like. Cloth does decay in time but the laths need to be of treated timber for life over 20 years.

We can buy shade cloth in 30% shade up to 60% I think. Mostly I've used 50% which seems reasonably successful. It does get covered with algae eventually and I found with my tunnel which had the same cloth (knitted) but white rather than dark green, that plants grew much better with the light coloured cloth, presumably because of the reflected light. But that too is now very green with algae and the growth is less strong. It needs a good hose down with a water blaster but I can't afford the water for this. Will be buying water by the end of next week if we don't have serious rain.

[Lesley Cox]

Should have said that a shade house here and no doubt in Australia too, has both walls and ceiling or roof of shade cloth or laths, with a doorway (in my original) or a door of the same material. This is better than an open space, to keep out cats and stray children in a nursery. One has control over who enters and who doesn't as always my most precious things were in there. Because the ceiling or roof is of the shade material, there is some dripping in wet weather but I never find this a problem and am careful not to position seed pots under any drips which come in the same places each time.

My original had wide beds made of railway sleepers but the present version has working level benches down the sides and a grownlevel row of trays doen the middle. It is 12m x 4m while the lath house was about 20m x 5m if I remember rightly.

[jandals]

Will be buying water by the end of next week if we don't have serious rain.

My second lot arrived yesterday (24000 litres) . A small price to pay for such a good seed harvest season . Driest December since records began , little wind and lots of sun . Really is the Costa del Clutha

[Tim Ingram]

Lesley - really interested by your description of a shade house with wooden laths. The thought of 100 Primula reidii in flower sounds like heaven! I am not sure I should be tempted to grow this again in such a dry part of the UK, but it would be nice to have such a structure to grow ferns and many woodland perennials. Claude Barr in America, who probably had temperatures similar to Fermi, shows a picture of a lath house in his book 'Jewels of the Plains', and grew extremely exciting plants there.

[Hoy]

Will be buying water by the end of next week if we don't have serious rain.

My second lot arrived yesterday (24000 litres) . A small price to pay for such a good seed harvest season . Driest December since records began , little wind and lots of sun . Really is the Costa del Clutha

24000 litres of water are what I get on my property every day from the sky (But I'm not that happy about it - should have been in the other thread )

[jandals]

Trond , I think there has been a mix up . You have obviously been sent our weather by mistake and we have received the south of France's weather . Not sure where your weather has gone to .

Tim-Dennis Hughes at Blue Mountain Nurseries (Tapanui NZ) has a large lath house (slat house he calls it ) which is about a half acre in size . He grows lots of rhodos and azaleas in it .Not far away in a drier, windier area there is (or maybe was-Brenda is not there now) a very cool fernery built in the ground on a completely flat paddock . They dug a big hole with a digger(3m deep and 5m square) and put a shadehouse roof over the top . The ferns did very well . Water was leaked in from the top and then pumped back up from the bottom