Greenhouse Construction is Complete! Plus Phal Spikes

My Urban Backyard Greenhouse

I posted about the completion of my greenhouse on Instagram, but I somehow completely forgot to write about it here! What kind of blogger am I?! Actually, I haven’t blogged about it yet because we didn’t really get the greenhouse set up properly until this weekend.

Here’s the greenhouse in all its fully constructed glory:

Backyard greenhouse

Here’s how our yard looked in August when my husband finished building the greenhouse:

Greenhouse in yard

I didn’t move any plants into the greenhouse right away. We didn’t have electricity set up yet so I couldn’t install a fan, humidifier, etc. And we traveled at the end of the summer so I didn’t want to plop plants into a new environment without being able to check on them daily.

I did start to move some orchids and other backyard plants into the greenhouse after Labor Day, once the temperature started to cool a bit. It did remain quite hot here for awhile so I held off on moving more orchids out back. My husband installed electrical outlets and I put a couple fans in the greenhouse to get the air circulating, but the outlets kept shutting off. So we had an electrician come out yesterday to fix the issue.

Inside greenhouse

Now, we have a newly functioning greenhouse! My husband installed a fan on the brick wall, and we have a small box fan to move air in through one of the side wall vents. We also have a small heater now that the temperatures have dropped, and we put a humidifier out there as well. My husband has some more ideas on how to keep the humidity up (and will eventually build a pond that goes partly inside the greenhouse to help with humidity). We may install a misting system if we need to but for now I’ll do it by hand, as I don’t have tons of orchids.

Greenhouse interior

I want to wait and see how these orchids do in this environment before I move the rest outside. But it’s very exciting to have this little space for my plants! The lavender and one of my succulents have been LOVING it.

We also installed string lights inside the greenhouse. How pretty is our yard at night?!

Greenhouse string lights

Fall Phal Spikes

I’m also excited to have two Phals in spike right now! They’re both plants that I’ve kept inside on the top floor of our house, in an eastern-facing window. The first one to spike is a NOID Phal keiki that has never bloomed for me before!

Phal keiki spike

Look at those little buds starting to develop!

Phal spike and buds

And the second is another NOID keiki that has yet to bloom. SO PSYCHED!

NOID Phal spike

I can’t wait to see the blooms on these Phals, and I’m looking forward to seeing how my orchids fare in their new environment. I’ve said this before, but growing orchids in a greenhouse is going to be a TON of trial and error for me. I’m a total newbie to greenhouse growing, and I’m sure I will learn a whole lot! Expect to see more updates here on my learning process.  🙂

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