I thought I responded a couple days ago -I guess it's gone to cyber space. Hurricane CHarley knocked down 5 huge trees on my property, there was no damage to our house or the houses next door so I considered that a warning and now have no tall trees at all. We are 11 ft above sea level and a block from a tidal canal so I am somewhat concerned about flooding although we've never had any flooding the 29 years we've been in this house. If we have a hurricane warning I can drop the shade and put the orchids on the pea gravel that's there and maybe just cover them with the shade fabric. If we have flooding,I'll have bigger concerns than my orchids. I'm going to contact the sprinkler guy and find out how realistic it would be to run a pipe to the area and put in a sprinkler head. We are allowed to use sprinkler water twice a week for four hours so it would be a nice back up water plan.

Phil, now this Brom-Bug is seriously going to bite you, seeing you now have a protected place to grow them in! I wish you all the best with the re-construction! The dam water that you use, do you pump it straight from the dam into your irrigation system, or do you pump it first into some kind of 'holding tank'or another smaller dam? If that is the case, I am sure you can get some chemicals that would not be harmful to the plants that you can add to the tank which will cause all the mud particles to settle as a sediment at the bottom. I grew up on a small-holding next to the Orange River and we used the muddy water. Every now and then, we would add a small handfull of ground peach pips to the tank and in less than a day, the water would be crystal clear! Japie

I have loved the design of that house since you first showed us the pictures of it. It looks great with all the plants in it. I know what you mean about it seeming big empty and then all of a sudden it is full!

Mike, I only move the hanging baskets outside. They are out from about mid April til sometimes late November just depending on when the weather decides it want's to suddenly and unexpectedly turn cold on us!!! I don't move the potted plants because the sides on my gh roll up to about 6ft from the ground allowing for air flow from all directions. The baskets are situated high up in the roof of the gh and aren't exposed to as much airflow so that's why they get moved outside. Xuan, I haven't really trained any of my hoyas,that's just the way they grow!!! Once the vines get heavy with new leaves they'll continue growing downward. I just sort of let them grow how they want to grow!!! Many of the vines do grow upwards and I allow them to stay that way but I do try to keep my hoyas from vining around one another.