My Grow Op

I had an unfinished bathroom in my basement when I moved in.  The walls were craked filled, and painted but there were no fixtures or trim.  For the first couple of years (before my plant addiction) I used it as a storage room.  However the white walls reminded me of a grow room I used at university.  So this year I finally hauled everything out of there and installed four fluorescent light fixtures.  These are just standard fixtures and not the specially made grow lights with higher wattage.

All the lights are plugged into a timer and they stay on for about 17 hours a day.  You can also see in the picture one of the walls in covered with a shiny blanket.  I found it at the dollar store as an emergency shelter and thought that it may add to the albedo effect in the room.  However, I'm not sure if it has better reflective properties than the white walls or not.

Here is a look from the doorway.  You can see that I purchased two greenhouses to put in the room.  I did this to increase the humidity for the plants without making the basement too damp. It seems to be working great.  Sometimes I get a little water condensing underneath the shelving and dripping on the floor but it is just a cheap linoleum floor that it is easy to mop up. 

 As you can see it is pretty crammed on the shelf.  I know that fluorescents are supposed to be only inches above the plants but the greenhouse framing prevents that.  It doesn't seem to stop the plants from growing.  The Fargesia rufa's never stop shooting. 

 Here is my potted Pseudosasa japonica.  It is currently shooting about 10 culms.  It is fun to watch the progress while 4 to 5 feet of snow lays in my backyard.  Notice the plant stand it sits on.  The casters seem like pretty cheap plastic but the framing is really strong.  I found them last week for $5 marked down from $30.  So I bought six of them.  If the casters start breaking (they passed my skateboarding and jumping test at the store) I could replace them with better wheels. 

 Here is a shot of my Fargesia nitida seedlings.  This one is just pushing it's second culm.  In the picture below you can try to find the three seeds that have just germinated.  The seeds germinated quite quickly (2 weeks) after a soaking in warm water for 48 hours.  However, of the 60 seeds only about 10 have germinated.  Oh well, they were quite old.  I am just happy to have had a few survive.  So far.

The Fargesia robusta and Sasaella masamuneana 'Albostriata' have finished shooting for now.  I am assuming they will start shooting again in the spring when I can finally move them outside into some stronger solar energy and soaking rains.  I managed to save the Sasaella from a discount rack somewhere in Ontario.  It was $5 and barely alive.

This next picture is what that Fargesia robusta looked like after I took it out of the box it was crammed in with 10 other bamboo plants last May.  I was not happy with the shipping from Canada's Bamboo World in Bristish Columbia but really I should just be happy that they even ship to New Brunswick.  Oh well, I guess with bamboo you are paying for what's beneath the soil anyway.  Right?

 
This is my Fargesia angustissima.  It started shooting in the early fall and then temperatures in my outdoor greenhouse (R.I.P. see previous post) started to tumble too low for culm production to continue.  However, when I brought the plant inside in November, the culms continue to push up and eventually branched and leafed out in the last month or so.  The color is great.  It started pushing a new shoot just the other day.  Check out the photo below.

The other greenhouse still has some room.  There will be a lot more when I finally take the potted bamboo to my classroom whenever these negative temperatures pass and I can borrow a truck.  The second greenhouse has a few ferns, some Phyllostachys bissetii that grew from rhizomes, a couple castor beans that I started early and one very weak Arundinaria gigantea that I started from a rhizome. 

 I ordered a variety of seeds tonight and look forward to starting them within the next couple of months.  I think it's going to be a long wait for spring this year because of the snow depth.  Especially considering we were at least two weeks early last year.  Until then, I guess I'll just continue to watch these grow and resist from drowning them by overwatering.
TC