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Next week I will pour the footings for a new 8 x 12 shadehouse. While I have planned out every detail, one is still bothering me, shade cloth percentage. Currently, all my plants are in full sun. My biggest problem is with temps and humidity. Even in the winter months the newest leaves and pitchers will wilt slightly around noon. I believe they could be producing more pitchers that last longer. Finally, I'm running out of space in the driveway, every new acquisition means less room for cars!

The new shadehouse will offer much more space and hopefully better conditions. One big upgrade will be the addition of a misting system. I plan to incorporate this system (recommended by favian). When hooked up to a RO unit I will be able to keep humidity up and grow helis and live sphagnum around the neps. I am however having trouble deciding on a shade cloth percentage. While some people swear by 30% or full sun, I have also heard of those who use 70-80%. While I want to reduce the lighting I don't want to eliminate it completely! Right now I am contemplating 40 or 50% cloth. However I still very undecided. I know there are quite a few growers here with neps outside (greenhouse or not). What works for you?

edit: Would esp like to hear from Hawaii growers. What percentage do you use and where did you get it?
 
I am using 70% but my conditions are going to be very different. Might want to see what Keith and John are using on Oahu....
 
I'm using 50% but I'm at a higher latitude than Hawaii and I only use it April-October... I've never had my Nepenthes get sunburns, although this year a few of them were definitely shocked by the high lighting they got in the beginning of April before I put the shade cloth back on.

Hawaii is pretty cloudy, during the winter when I've been there. I'd say 50% wouldn't be overkill for sure, but if Kula is using 70%, might wanna go with that since he actually grows in Hawaii. He seems to have quite good success with his plants.

I've never lived in Hawaii, so I probably don't have the best answer for you. My plants have never gotten sun burnt in the summer, though.
 
Coastal Oregon, 50% shadecloth from late May through mid-September. I have mine set up so I can draw back the shade (like a curtain) on cloudy days, and I pull it on only after 10AM on summer mornings, and pull it back again around 6PM every day. I try to maximize the non-burning sun hours.
 
We're at 1000' elevation and I've got my nursery on the West side of our house (it doesn't receive light till later in the day) with a clear 16 mil tarp overhead that blocks 20% of the light. This was wonderful until about May when it started bleaching out my sphagnum and stunting the leaf growth on my smaller plants (but seemingly not the size of the pitchers). My larger truncata hybrids loved it and have produced their largest leaves, but anything under 6" diameter seemed to be affected. I have misters that were going on for 10 minutes every day at noon. I've since changed this to 9 AM to allow for a little more saturation, rather than it just evaporating really quickly. I also try and mist if it's really sunny. About a month ago I added extra Sun Screen Fabric from Home Depot, the black stuff, I think it says up to 75% more shade, but I also don't trust these numbers. I think everything is happier, but it's probably too early to tell. I think I'll do something similar to Whimgrinder and take it down in September or October and then put it back up in April or May.
Farthest away from the house, right outside the tarp, I have my 20 gallon pots w my big Ventricosa, Red Leopard, and Maxima x Sanguinea; these have nothing overhead and are going absolutely crazy with growth! Some stems are now activating every single node (a wild site to see) and putting out the biggest leaves I've ever seen on them. Node length between leaves at the top of my Red Leopard has gone from a few inches to an extremely compact spacing.
 
Oooo, a new shadehouse! You must be excited! :) you'll have to post pics when you're done.
For my shade house I use 50% shade cloth. Well, im pretty sure it was 50%, its the black color one at Home Depot. I'll double check to make sure. It works great for me and my plants love it.

Good luck with it! If you or your dad want to come and look at mine to see how mine was built, you're more than welcome to come over. Or I can send pics as well ;)
 
Hawaii is pretty cloudy, during the winter when I've been there. I'd say 50% wouldn't be overkill for sure, but if Kula is using 70%, might wanna go with that since he actually grows in Hawaii. He seems to have quite good success with his plants.

I've never lived in Hawaii, so I probably don't have the best answer for you. My plants have never gotten sun burnt in the summer, though.

Around here the skies are usually quite clear. Sometimes in the winter it can get a little rainy and overcast but generally it's blue skies. I think 50% might be the best then. Like Kula mentioned Kula, Maui is much higer elevation than my location so what works for him might not work for me.

Coastal Oregon, 50% shadecloth from late May through mid-September. I have mine set up so I can draw back the shade (like a curtain) on cloudy days, and I pull it on only after 10AM on summer mornings, and pull it back again around 6PM every day. I try to maximize the non-burning sun hours.

Unfortunately I won't have the option of moving the shadecloth according to the weather. The shade cloth will be semi permanently secured to the metal frame. Again 50% sounds good especially looking at your awesome results!

We're at 1000' elevation and I've got my nursery on the West side of our house (it doesn't receive light till later in the day) with a clear 16 mil tarp overhead that blocks 20% of the light. This was wonderful until about May when it started bleaching out my sphagnum and stunting the leaf growth on my smaller plants (but seemingly not the size of the pitchers). My larger truncata hybrids loved it and have produced their largest leaves, but anything under 6" diameter seemed to be affected. I have misters that were going on for 10 minutes every day at noon. I've since changed this to 9 AM to allow for a little more saturation, rather than it just evaporating really quickly. I also try and mist if it's really sunny. About a month ago I added extra Sun Screen Fabric from Home Depot, the black stuff, I think it says up to 75% more shade, but I also don't trust these numbers. I think everything is happier, but it's probably too early to tell. I think I'll do something similar to Whimgrinder and take it down in September or October and then put it back up in April or May.
Farthest away from the house, right outside the tarp, I have my 20 gallon pots w my big Ventricosa, Red Leopard, and Maxima x Sanguinea; these have nothing overhead and are going absolutely crazy with growth! Some stems are now activating every single node (a wild site to see) and putting out the biggest leaves I've ever seen on them. Node length between leaves at the top of my Red Leopard has gone from a few inches to an extremely compact spacing.

This one will be on the east side of the house. From what I've observed it gets direct sun from 9 am to 4 pm. Is this enough light? The currently the plants get sun from 12 am to sunset. I have observed the same thing. small plants and newer plants don't do so well with so much sun. Surprisingly my 32+" truncata doesn't like it either, while it keeps getting larger all the leaves have white sun burnt patches. Hopefully I can get the new misting system to go off hourly for one or two minutes to keep everything cooler and more humid.

Oooo, a new shadehouse! You must be excited! :) you'll have to post pics when you're done.
For my shade house I use 50% shade cloth. Well, im pretty sure it was 50%, its the black color one at Home Depot. I'll double check to make sure. It works great for me and my plants love it.

Good luck with it! If you or your dad want to come and look at mine to see how mine was built, you're more than welcome to come over. Or I can send pics as well ;)

Oh yes, I am VERY excited! Right now I've got the whole area laid out in string and have the footings dug. We would have poured on Friday but I've been pretty sick lately. Might pour on Monday depending on how I feel. I will take lots of pictures and get them up here soon. I have seen shade cloth at Home Depot but wasn't sure if it was large enough or the right percentages. I'm going to need one piece about 13 x 20 and two more roughly 10 x 10 for the ends. Looking for good places in Hawaii as well as online. Haven't found much in Hawaii besides Home Depot. Thanks for the offer to visit. I think I'll have to decline as I'm under the weather... however if you are out there I would love some pics! I've seen some in your thread. Most interested in how you fastened the cloth to the frame. Maybe when this project is done I can invite everyone over for another potluck!
 
Alrighty, some pics of the details.....

Here's what it looks like from the front. The frame for the whole thing is made from wood and its just sitting inside an old dog run that the previous owner made out of bricks and a chain link fence.


So to attach the shade cloth we bought strips of wood and wrapped the wood with the cloth, then screwed the wood to the frame to hold down the cloth


We also stapled some of the areas down as well.


I couldn't ever find pieces of shade cloth big enough so I sewed mine together with nylon thread. It was pretty quick and easy to do and has held up as if there was no seam there to begin with. And honestly until I went out there today I didn't remember that it was more than one big piece.


You can see in this next picture the three seams where the pieces were stitched together to get it big enough to fit the width


Hope you get to feeling better! I myself have been thinking about getting another BBQ going so we can all meet up. Hopefully before the summer ends, but we shall see ;)

If you need any more explanation or pics, let me know.
 
  • #10
http://www.rudyshadehawaii.com/ was told they could make a pre fab cover for just about anything... then nylon cord sew in place or strips of wood nailed down to frame

Thanks! I will definitely be contacting them when it comes time to purchase the cloth. The frame will be metal pipe so attaching the cloth might be a problem... I could possibly use plastic grommets and hooks/zipties.
 
  • #11
Thanks for the pics! You setup looks great! Although my frame will be metal I'm thinking about attaching wood to the bottom edges and wrapping it in shade cloth (like in your second picture) before securing it to the frame. Also it's good to know I can join pieces so easily because I was wondering how I would go about attaching the front and back sections. Looks like you used a running stitch? Also did you find out what percentage the shade was? I can't find anything from Home Depot at 50%... it's either 30% or 70+%.
 
  • #12
Thanks for the pics! You setup looks great! Although my frame will be metal I'm thinking about attaching wood to the bottom edges and wrapping it in shade cloth (like in your second picture) before securing it to the frame. Also it's good to know I can join pieces so easily because I was wondering how I would go about attaching the front and back sections. Looks like you used a running stitch? Also did you find out what percentage the shade was? I can't find anything from Home Depot at 50%... it's either 30% or 70+%.

Yup, I used a running stitch. Nothing fancy :)
I looked at Home Depot and it appears that I'm using the 70% shade cloth instead of the 50% like I thought. I also asked my dad who had help me build it at the time and he said it was definitely more than 50%.
 
  • #13
Okay, sounds easy enough! I'm kinda reluctant to go for anything more than 50%.. although 70% looks like it's working very well on your plants. I'm also worried about the photoperiod. Today I watched the area all day and realized the entire shadehouse gets sun from 8:30 am to 2:30 pm. Between 2:30 and 3:30 the shade slowly covers the structure. Is this too short?
 
  • #14
For me, I arrange my plants in certain areas of the shade house. The side that gets the most sun I put the ultra-lowlanders, where as the ones that are hybrids with highlanders I typically put in the more shady area. So for me it works out that some areas get more shade than others.

I personally think that you'll be ok with either percentage that you pick. I find that my plants always adapt. If I were you I'd go with the 50% and if you find it's not enough you can always add another layer of cloth to raise the shade. It would be much harder to go from 70% down to 50% ;)
 
  • #15
Not too sure about the photoperiod and how that'll affect the plants. Mine typically get from 8:30-4:30 in the summer and less in the winter.

I bet someone else will have more to add on that particular question....
 
  • #16
I've been wondering how much the length of the photoperiod affects my plants too. They get the opposite end of the light period, but in the afternoon clouds usually roll in reducing it further. But I wouldn't worry about it too much, truth be told mine still do really well w a limited photoperiod.
I wouldn't recommend more than 50% to start with, you can always add more if need be on the more sensitive plants in the summer.
 
  • #17
For me, I arrange my plants in certain areas of the shade house. The side that gets the most sun I put the ultra-lowlanders, where as the ones that are hybrids with highlanders I typically put in the more shady area. So for me it works out that some areas get more shade than others.

I personally think that you'll be ok with either percentage that you pick. I find that my plants always adapt. If I were you I'd go with the 50% and if you find it's not enough you can always add another layer of cloth to raise the shade. It would be much harder to go from 70% down to 50% ;)

I was considering the same thing. However I had it flipped in my head, with the lowlanders receiving more shade. It actually does make more sense that the highlanders would receive more shade as the would stay cooler. That said it's roughly a one hour difference, not sure if it will have much effect. I think I will go with 50% considering the success many people have with it. We will see how the plants do.
 
  • #18
I've been wondering how much the length of the photoperiod affects my plants too. They get the opposite end of the light period, but in the afternoon clouds usually roll in reducing it further. But I wouldn't worry about it too much, truth be told mine still do really well w a limited photoperiod.
I wouldn't recommend more than 50% to start with, you can always add more if need be on the more sensitive plants in the summer.

My current setup is like that too, the sun hits at noon and is gone around five. It seems the sudden transition from morning shade to noon sun is a little hard on the plants. Of course right now they lack shading.
 
  • #19
Any progress on your shade house lately? :)
 
  • #20
Any progress on your shade house lately? :)

Yes, but very slowly. At the moment all the footings are poured but nothing much other than that. Hopefully in the upcoming weeks I can find some time to do some work. I will try to upload some pics a little later. On a side note, I purchased some 40% shade cloth for some of the seedlings and it seems to be the perfect percentage, if anything it seems too high! Since the shade was installed the plants seem to be pitchering more consistently so that's a plus!
 
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