limited light problems & solutions

[paradox]

i've recently moved into a place with a backyard which is sort of long & thin if you know what i mean. it runs down the side of the house & is about 3.5 - 4m wide. on the other side of it is our neighbours house & some trees which add a fair bit of shade also.

so i have my cacti set up in this yard & they are only getting about 3 hours of direct light a day & with the growing season coming on i'm getting a little worried about my babies.

i'm keen to hear peoples experiences with growing cacti in situations where direct sunlight is as limited as this & whether people think i'm going to have any major problems with lack of light induced elongation etc.

also, there is an old abandoned workshop thing near my house which has a lot of old mirrors, which i have salvaged & am now attempting to create a set up so i can harness a bit more morning sun light & reflect it onto my plants.

but this has got me wondering if this will cause problems also, because with this set up the reflected light is essentially coming from underneath the plants rather than from above. you know what i mean? it just sort of seems unnatural & i'm worried that this will cause some problems. like, will the plants get confused & grow in strange shapes, seeking the light which is coming from underneath them & then when the unreflected direct sunlight hits them, get confused again etc etc

do people think this is an issue? any tips?

thanks

[tassiejd]

Not sure how this will go, reflected light is usually in a different colour spectrum to the sun, you may also find that the mirrors create some hot spots on the cacti where the light reflects to, not sure how damaging any of this would be but some one else my be able to answer with a bit more info.

[XipeTotec]

yeah, im facing the same issues... i did wonder the other day if I could use some sort of mirror setup... but resigned myself to crappy light levels for the time being.

[shruman]

3 hours of sun is pretty low u do'nt have anywhere else to put them?

In summer the sun should move across the sky straight overhead do u think this will help.

The mirrors will do absolutely nothing they do'nt reflect enough useable light for plants, most of it is lost traveling through the glass then being reflected & traveling back through the glass. If u want to reflect light flat white painted surfaces or mylar are the way to go.

I'd keep an eye on it, u might just be able to get away with it with slower growth rates of course or u could put them under a HID light.

[Vertmorpheus]

Hard to visualise exactly the space you describe shru, but if the fence is solid enough and it gets sun further up the fence/walls (meaning your ground level is shaded out but high areas get some decent light) maybe you could make some potholders of a sort and mount your babies on the fence.. a circle to fit under the rim of a pot , with an s shaped blunted hook to hang over the top rail of a rail n paling fence has worked well for some things around here, especially things with light aery mostly dry mix... though if you make those hooks out of rio or MS or something they're not coming down in a real hurry unless someone nicks them. Not real handy for overly tall plants though, if you're worried about...uh...security haha.

I hear mirrors actually eat a fair bit of light, but they eat it "evenly" from the spectrum so we don't notice so much...not looked into it myself, but people seem to steer clear of em even when they'd be the obvious choice. might also lead to the neighbours having a better view into certain aspects of your home n garden than you care to share with them If you're not renting, going apeshit all over the yard n house exterior with some nice gloss white and whitewash etc can help bounce some around... with all the cactus you could call it Shrumanio's Taverna or something and charge admission.

Pity you're not in Brissie, people here tend to get down anything capable of casting decent deep shade to "let the light in" and then spend the next year hiding inside because suddenly, somehow, it is really bright out the back

[shruman]

Damn ur a bunny fugger VM

I dont know wether to laugh with u or at u so I'll do both

I'll have what hes having ,did I mention how much u made me laugh?

[AndyAmine.]

I would suggest using lots of white, white walls, white floors etc. with some suplemental lighting.

[teonanacatl]

mine got 3hrs for a while, just dont water them much or expect much growth

[Vertmorpheus]

fuck an i never even got onto fibre optics or building an alfoil hat with a light bulb for every last plant.... Or stealing a merry go round from local carnies, siting it somewhere that does get decent light duration but has a shitty amount of space, then you can cycle your plants thru the sunny patch at 95 kph....laugh it up, my original Mr Pedro has put on two inches in the last month and I've been munching fresh basil and cherry toms for the same course, a tomato hanging off your fence looks a lil less unusual. But nowhere near as funny to see fence hoppers finding EXACTLY what they came for, just a fuckload quicker than they were expecting, muwhawha. Cactusoscopy.

It's contagious,

VM

www.ga.gov.au has great calculators for how much light you get a day, also lunar calculators etc... handy free stuff.

Edited September 13, 2007 by Vertmorpheus