led vs. hid vs. fluros. please advise.
quinton
16 years ago
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bloomingdirtbag
16 years agolast modified: 9 years agoshrubs_n_bulbs
16 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
Leyland vs. Green Giant vs. White Pine need screening advice
Comments (29)Yes I have been short of time lately, but after I just saw your latest questions, I took only a moment to walk over to my row of trees and check thier measurements. The fence behind my trees appears 10 times worse that the one in your photo. My trees are planted on about 9 foot centers and I only did one row of them. The bottom four feet height on then averages spreads across their widths of at average is 5 feet all the way around them. For the distance from the two intercecting fences inside corner to the end of the bad fence my trees are distacting the view from is about 50 feet long. I have 7 GGs planted along this length. the GG's trunk nearest to the inside corner of the intercecting fences has a trunk only 4 feet away from the corner. the 6 other GGS have an 8 feet distance I can measure from trunk to trunk, But the planting holes when first dug were centered at almost 9 feet distances. The lower 4 feet of the trees are the most full and there is still an average of a 2 foot gap between each of the trees that needs to fill in before the trees will make a solid screen along that height of the 6 foot tall fence. Since I stoped giving my trees osmokote even before last year the rest of the trees growth is not as thick or wide, so there is even more view of the top two feet of the ugly fence. This is the reason why I suggested it is best for you to plant two staggered rows. That way you will have a better full screen more quickly than my trees. the neighbor's two story house is no more than 4 feet on the otherside of the ugly fence. The tops of my trees have grown about a foot higher than the bottom of their second story windows. I measured a 4 foot distance from the fence slats to the trunks of my trees, and I could still easily, with out much tree branch displacement, walk behind my trees and the fence when I came up with the 50 foot measurement for the lengh of fence that the lower 4 feet of this line of trees currently cover. One other note is that I planted only 18 inch tall trees to start. They are fairly well protected from the prevailing north/south winds because the 2 story house is directly south of them and there is a large scarlet oak tree directly north of the first 3 from that inside corner I discussed above. I live on a corner lot and my house faces west, but the fence in question is along along the east facing back yard/south side yard, and it stretchs westward to about half the depth of our south facing side yard. So my GGs get plenty of afternoon sun, especially in the summer and before they grew so tall got a lot of morning shade. I only went to all this description to illustrate how protected they are from drying winds. This is so effective for then that my trees have never taken on a bronzy cast that many people report their GGS do in the winter. My trees are also planted on a slight rise where the builders of the two story house so close south of my trees never did a good job cleaning out the builders sand they uses when installing a narrow sidewalk between that house and the privacy fence. The growth I reported with my trees has all been affected by theses issues I have just discussed. GGs which struggle will slow draining soil that stays wet longer will grow only half as fast as mine have until they get well established, which could take up to 4 years. Some of them might even die during sudden dry periods and have to be replaced. Also trees planted at 6 feet tall might take a full 2 years before you see much top growth out out them. That is because they will be using this time to develop a better root system which can support the 5 foot yearly growth these trees do while they are young and once they are established. The trade off you get with this is while they are waiting to develop a larger root system and not growing much in height, they will be doing a better job than mine did concerning the thickening of their trunks and also thickening the density and spread of their branches. My trees did not have to that root size catch up so they started showing nice top growth in the first year they were planted. It took them all this time though to develop an exceptionally good density and branch spread over the lower 4 feet of them. If I had kept spreading Osmokote under them and watering them regularly in dry periods after they got well established, them that exceptionally nice thickness and spread portion of them today might have reached at least 8 feet high. As it is they have a fairly nice appearance from top to bottom, but do not have the type of screening affect that you would want to handle well the issues you have described in your back yard view. Hope that with all this description, it will help you to understand better why I suggested a double staggered row with the front row beeing the Steeplechase trees. If cost is an issue, you might plant 6 foot tall GGS on the back row and either purchase locally or order in if they cannot be found locally the steeplechase sport cultivars of the GGS. If ordered in those Steeplechase cultivar trees would probably on be available no larger than 3 gallon size and will look fairly thin when you get them, but if you provide them good drainage, water them correctly, and feed them with osmokote each spring and fall growing season then it will suprise you a how quickly they catch up in size the the larger GGS you planted in the back row....See MoreNeed advise on an HID light system
Comments (16)Ross, I like out-of-the-box set-ups. My 400-watt HPS had everything I needed, I just needed to attach a few screws. But just to throw a monkey wrench into your plans, have you thought about LED lights? They are mo-re expensive to buy, but they have lots of benefits, especially if you count bulb replacement, the cost of electricity and AC costs in summer. There are even some models that allow you to control the amount of Red and Blue light, depending on the growing stage. I just bought a 125 watt panel (list price, $209) that covers the same area as a 400 watt HPS from this store but I don't think they sell the adjustable ones. But from another site it tells you how many panels you need. For your plants, it looks like 2-4 panels since you need medium to high mols/day. The cost of the fixtures may end up being the same but you would be looking at using 250-500 watts per hour instead of 1200-1800. Of cou-rse, you can always buy one HPS/MH lamp and a LED panel and see which works the best! Mike Forum owners: will you PLEASE quit adding links to my messages....See MoreFerguson Mirabelle 60x30 vs Azzura Adora vs Maxx Rubix 60 x32?
Comments (149)It feels totally fine without the mortar base. Keep in mind that it IS plastic and if you push on the sides, there is a little "give" but it's not cast iron, so to be expected. I love the look of it, but to me it feels like it retains dirt more than other tubs, because it is plastic. I feel like I want to scrub it after every bath, as opposed to just rinsing/quickly wiping it and then scrubbing every week. But the overall clean lines look of it is amazing and I did not see any other tubs that I liked as much. I think we covered this in upper convos but remember that there are two heights (we chose the lower one and I would stick with that as it feels more standard. And the other thing is that it comes with a single or double tiling flange. If you need more info on that let me know, and I will give you more details....See MoreLED Lights Compare: Jandy WaterColors vs. Pentair Intellibrite
Comments (21)Can anyone advise me on my problem? I have Jandy filter, 2 Jandy pool lights and 1 Jandy spa light. After only 1.5 years both pool lights in the pool went out within days of each other. My pool guy is impossible to reach and difficult to deal with, but he finally said he’d replace them if we buy new ones. So we paid him for 2 new lights (Pentair Intellibright) for $1,700. I asked him why he didn’t get us the Jandy like we already had (that changes to 17 or so colors) and he said it doesn’t matter and there are better. Well..... long story short — his guys were here and cannot pull the wires out to install the new light. I don’t know why and neither to they. So they cut the light out with about 3” of wire and the other end is just a dangling wire in the pool. He says he’s done and they cannot Pull it — it’s stuck. We are trying to get someone else but don’t know if we should get the Jandy lights instead. It will be impossible getting our money back for these lights We use aqua link app to work pool lights, filter etc. are these Intellibright compatible with our app system and Jandy spa light. I am so disgusted and maddened bec we spent a fortune on our pool, patio etc. and we are stuck. P.S. another company first came when we saw the lights didn’t work and they also could not pull the wire through. The piping is underneath our new stone patio. And advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!...See Morebloomingdirtbag
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