But it will be mended shortly

I’m growing a lot of Bulbophyllums these days that are mounted to bark, cork, etc.  So I mist them every morning and every night with my spray bottle.

I opened one of the glass doors to fill up the spray bottle when the phone rang.  So I slid it closed, a little too hard apparently, because it shattered in my hand.

Thank God for safety glass.  Otherwise, I may not have been able to get away with just a small cut on my finger.  Safety glass is great for preventing injury but what a BIG pain in the ass to clean up.  It took hours.  I’m amazed at how far the glass traveled.

For anyone who has an orchidarium or is thinking of getting one, heed my advice.  If you have non-potted orchids mounted on the walls, and you spray them with water, that water is going to travel into the steel base (not the reservoirs) and eventually travel into the door tracks.  It’s going to leave all kinds of schmutz there and corrode the little wheel casters attached to the bottom of the doors.  And the doors aren’t going to slide as easily so you’re going to need more and more force to get them closed.

And if you don’t clean those tracks, you’re going to slam that door closed too hard one day and you’ll have a similar story to tell.  Yes, it’s a pain in the ass to take all the orchids out, take the top off, the doors, the shelves, etc and clean the whole thing.  But doing it once a year will save you from this.

The good part is that I got to talk to Robert Jacobs from Orchidarium.com again.  He’s such a nice man.  My replacement door will be here soon, and I’m getting a couple of sponges for the bottom water reservoirs too since the mess that I found in them was pretty gross.  The sponges will keep them cleaner.  Plus, he’s sending me new casters for the doors that he says are better for them.  I’ll update this post when everything arrives.

Till then, thanks for reading. 

Tricia

Click the more link below for updates

update June 23rd, 2007

I still don’t have my replacement door.  I spoke to Robert again on Friday, and he said he ordered it with Bear Glass (Brooklyn, NY) this week and that it would take 2 to 5 business days.  So I should have it by the end of next week.  I’m a bit dissapointed that it will be three weeks by the time I get it.  But in the meantime, the orchids aren’t suffering.  I have the clear plastic covering we get from the dry cleaners taped over the front.

I did something smart for a change though.  I had taken out the (2) white grids that make up the floor of the orchidarium and the rubber liners underneath.  I cleaned them all with diluted bleach and cleaned the base of the orchidarium.

Before I put the liners/grids back in, I cut up strips of kitchen garbage bags and taped them a few inches above the base with packing tape.  I made sure to leave about 10 inches that now lays in the rubber liners.  Why?  So when I spray the orchids, instead of the water dripping down the walls and collecting in the base, it now drains down the bags and into the rubber liners.

The door track has been dry as a bone for 2 weeks.  Now…  If I could only get my door… 

update October 21st, 2007

Ok so it took me quite a while to update again.  Sorry about that. 

It took just about a month to get my glass door from the original contact with the Orchidarium company.  I wasn’t happy about that, for obvious reasons, and made that clear to Mr. Jacobs.  Although I thought they would “do something” for me in the way of maybe free shipping on the other accessories I had ordered, maybe a free sponge or something, they didn’t.

However, I did get a phone call and email of apology and a full explination of why it took so long.

The original company had some miscommunication with Robert’s order and claimed they didn’t get his original fax.  So a week had gone by before he called to check on the order that they denied ever getting.

When Robert got a new estimate for the time it would take, he wound up ordering the glass from another company that he had never done business with before.  They were actually much closer to my location than Bear Glass.

Once the order was made with them, they had the glass manufactured and delivered in record time.  However, it was almost July 4th when I got the door.  It wasn’t that big of a deal to have no door, since I had it covered, but it was just annoying.

My advice to anyone who owns an orchidarium like this is to use the plastic trick I listed above to keep the water from collecting in the door track.  The door track is still completely dry.  Robert gave me new sliders to attach to the bottom of the doors – they are plastic instead of metal.  I scored them with a nail file first, applied the Crazy Glue to them, and attached them to both the doors.  So far so good.

Also, the glass came with cork squares to cushion it during transport.  They have a second life, glued to the right and left sides of the door track to prevent the glass from touching the edge when closing.

Finally, those sponges were way too thick for the base.  I actually cut them in half so they would fit under the white crate pieces.  Safe yourself the time and expense and just get them from the supermarket.

As always, feel free to comment or email me with questions.

Trish

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