Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => General Forum => Topic started by: Matt T on February 01, 2014, 02:48:21 PM
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Battling with the elements, I've been in need of somewhere sturdy for my growing bulb collection. Growing anything here really demands shelter and last winter I had to retrieve a cold frame from 2 fields away (I think winds hit 92mph - not unusual for us :o). No more flimsy cold frames or makeshift fish crates covered with a window pane! (Although the latter still have their place.)
With the weather being so consistently terrible here since November I've been busy out in the byre. We were gifted some old double glazed windows about 2 years ago and it was time something was done with them. I present the results here (photo 1) and am pretty chuffed with it. I especially like that fact that it looks a bit like an old fashioned Victorian frame. We're in a rented property, so permanent constructions are not an option and the frame can be moved if we leave here.
I've employed the Hebridean crofter principle of not spending money if it can be avoided. So, the windows were donated, the cladding timber was surplus from a friend who's building a house as was the sharp sand. My only purchases were timber for the basic framework, some hinges, a few screws and a small tin of wood preservative - all in about £30.
The whole construction is very heavy, and nestled up against the house wall with it's sloping front it should be pretty 'aerodynamic', so I know it will withstand the winds here. I pondered how to work out the angles and dimensions for the sloping front ??? and settled on basing the design on a 3:4:5 triangle. I could tell you it was made-to-measure for it's location, but that would be a lie and it is purely luck that it fits perfectly on the concrete plinth surrounding the house. A miracle of trigonometry!
The windows have been removed from the secondary frames to reduce their bulk and allow maximum light into the plants but they are still heavy. They've been attached with 4 x butt hinges on each light and I think the forces are exerted in such directions that they should hold...time will tell.
I grow in plastic pots but have incorporated a 'plunge' with about 4" of coarse sand in the bottom that they stand on (photo 2). I was concerned about moisture in the sand reducing the life of the timber (especially given our wet climate meaning that it will take a battering from outside as well as inside). I built in a 'plunge liner', so the base has a double skin with an air gap of 4-5 cm between (photo 3). This lining can be replaced if it rots more easily than building a whole new frame. An added benefit is that this air gap may provide a bit of insulation. I could have filled this gap with expanding foam, but wanted to avoid the cost and heavy frosts (let alone long freezes) are very rare out here.
I now have a bulb frame with plunge of 7' x 2' (internally), sheltered at a gable end orientated south-south-east. This is a vast improvement on my previous growing arrangements and I hope my bulbs will respond. I also have more space for my growing collection ;D
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Wow, very "swanky" look for a frame made from recycled materials. Looks VERY solid - which I know it will need to be!
White interior to reflect maximum light - what more could a bulb ask of a new home?
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I like it
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Matt
Looks so much better than Access frames and so much cheaper :) ;D :)
Fingers crossed that the winds do not manage to shift it.
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RESPECT! And built on Yorkshire principles of finance too. ;)
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Thank you all for your kind comments.
I'm now on the look out for more discarded windows... ;)
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I don't know if you've worked out a way to have the lights open for ventilation without them blowing away, but this is how I did mine.
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The frames also have a moat to keep out invaders! ;D
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Anne, love the moat. Wish I had this it might drown some of the mice that seem to be eating all my bulbs ( sorry to all animal lovers )
Angie :)
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Great frame, Matt. Well done.
Does anything manage to grow outside apart from grasses?
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I don't know if you've worked out a way to have the lights open for ventilation without them blowing away, but this is how I did mine.
Matt seems to have overlooked the continuation of this thread, and I've only just found it.
Most inventive Anne. They wouldn't last a winter up here though. Even closed, the wind would have the polycarbonate side panels.
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Does anything manage to grow outside apart from grasses?
Hi Margaret
The islands are split in two in terms of habitat. The west is wind-blown shell-sand which has stabilised as internationally important 'machair'. This supports a fine flora in late spring and summer (see images). The east in more mountainous (a relative term - hardly alpine country :() with moorland, heathland and bog.
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;D ;D the wind could have those, it's the main lights I'm worried about! I'm sure your winds are worse than ours though.
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Lovely wild flower meadow, Simon. Do you get sundews, butterworts, Eriophorum and bog myrtle in the wetter areas or is it too cold? As a child in a remote part of SW Scotland I spent many happy hours pressing flowers for my dried flower collection. The bog cotton always came out best. Maybe it is frowned upon now :-\
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Yes, we get all of those, mainly on the western side.
I thought I had loaded two images, must have done something wrong.
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I'm sure your winds are worse than ours though.
Enough to drive you mad! Everything here has to be over-engineered (to your eyes) to withstand even an average Hebridean winter.
For my new frame, I'm just propping the lights open on wee blocks of wood. The windows are heavy, so their own weight keeps them in place. I have cut props of varying lengths, but so far have only used the shortest ones because the strong winds have ensured more than adequate ventilation even with a small gap.
Already my plants seem to be responding positively in their new home. It could also be the lengthening daylight hours of course, but many buds are starting to break and some plants that I assumed had not broken dormancy are finally appearing above the surface :)
One of my problems here is that I think the bulbs do not always get enough of a baking in the summer. Last summer was not too great, with cool air temperatures and many overcast days. This leads to plants being slow to break dormancy, occasional missed years etc. Once my plants have died back and any excess moisture has evaporated off I'm going to experiment with shutting the frame down to try build up/retain some level of warmth in the frame (without totally roasting them of course). Hopefully then I'll see a difference next season.
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...a fine flora in late spring and summer...
Whilst we have fewer species than most other areas of Scotland/UK and only a few specialities/rarities the sheer volume of flowers here on the machair is quite special. They just go on, and on, and on and on...
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Magical, Matt.
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Chris ans Matt, wonderful wild flowers, thank you. It's little wonder that wild flower lawns have become so popular in our gardens.
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Our recent moved has provided an opportunity to make a small modification to the bulb frame. I've been struggling to control moisture in the plunge sand and get the pots dry enough in the summer months. The problem is that the frame sits on a concrete slab, rainfall seeps across the surface and is drawn up by the sand/pots, so despite being covered the potting medium stays (too) moist. Photo 1 shows a pot that has been stood on the plunge and one that hasn't. As a result, I've lost a couple of bulbs but thankfully have a very low incidence of Stag.
My solution has been to create a void, breaking the linkage between the wet ground and plunge sand. I've used the plastic grids usually placed over grass for hard-wearing parking areas etc (Photo 2). They are rigid, strong and give good support for the weight above and are easily cut with a saw to fit to the space (Photo 3).
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Concerned that I might be creating a perched water table, I've added some strips of fabric to act as wicks between the base of the plunge and the ground below, hopefully allowing water to drain away (photo 4). The whole has then been covered with a woven horticultural fabric (photo 5) lining the plunge onto which a bed of sand is laid (photo 6). The pots are now neatly packed in again (photo 7).
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That seems like a good idea, Matt. And a very neat execution of it.
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VERY neat. Those plastic panels are just what I've been looking for to stand pots onto which otherwise would be on gravel - I've tried all sorts of netting but the pots usually just fall over. I need it so that plants are prevented from rooting through into the gravel by air-pruning of the roots as they emerge.
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You used the grids in the grass mode and then used wicks to get some water uptake. Would you not have got the same effect using the grid in the gravel filled mode (up the other way) and not needed to use the wicks? I guess the gravel size would determine the efficiency of "wicking" effect and contact with the pots drainage holes.
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Good grief Matt, that's what I thought labelling and bulb frames were like on the other side of the pearly gates. :o
We have used the cheap white grid sheets sold to diffuse light on fluorescent fixtures. However small-bottomed pots do fall over on it with any jittery movements.
johnw
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You used the grids in the grass mode and then used wicks to get some water uptake. Would you not have got the same effect using the grid in the gravel filled mode (up the other way) and not needed to use the wicks? I guess the gravel size would determine the efficiency of "wicking" effect and contact with the pots drainage holes.
Hi Brian,
The wicks are in place to allow water to drain away rather than water uptake. If the plunge was left suspended above the void there's a chance that surface tension would keep the water sitting in the plunge. In theory, the wicks will maintain a degree of hydrological connectivity and allow excess water to drain out. I appreciate that some water will be wicked up at times, but this will be much less than if the whole body of the sand plunge was in contact with the ground. It's all a learning process so I'm experimenting with different options to create the right conditions here.
M
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Good grief Matt, that's what I thought labelling and bulb frames were like on the other side of the pearly gates. :o
We have used the cheap white grid sheets sold to diffuse light on fluorescent fixtures. However small-bottomed pots do fall over on it with any jittery movements.
johnw
The benefit of the annual repot is being able to reorganise the complete collection! ;D
The grids you show were my first thought, but I couldn't find any suitable on Amazon - they all had a grid that was too large to support my plunge/pots. These turf grids give great support, even for small pots (most of mine are 7cm) prior to the sand plunge being laid and there were no issues with toppling.