You've found the famous Dave's Garden website! Join this friendly global community that shares tips and ideas for home and gardens, along with seeds and plants!
Check out the DG homepage for a brief overview of what you'll find in this gardening mega-site.
Login
If you don't have an account yet, visit the registration page to sign up.
anyone have any suggestions for a design on a dime- shade structure?
I have some orchids and other plants that need complete shade, I'd like to make something in
the back area of my yard against a fence.
You could put four 2x4s, cemented in the ground. 2x2s joining the 4 pieces of 2x4s on the top, to make a frame. Walmart has outdoor fabric. Staple the fabric to the frame. You can leave two of the 2x4s an inch or two higher to help the water run off the top. I hope this makes some kind of sense.
I've seen some pretty cool things on HGTV. One of them had a canvas stretched between three poles - a triangular shape - which created a great, modern looking shade structure, that shed water naturally off the edges. You could make a shade structure that could be literally custom fit to your space. It could be used with other shapes as well. One end was taller than the other, so water and shade could be controlled. If I find it on the HGTV website, I'll post it.
I used pvc pipes, some corrugated sheets for the roof and shade cloth to make a shade/green house for my orchid cactus. Just use screws instead of glue to hold it together that way you can take it apart of enlarge in if you wish. I also make benches for it
Here is a site for the furniture joints. http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/PVC-Fittings/products/118...
I've tried this method last year, and it didn't work well with the winds. As you know here in fl we get very windy days
I found myself constantly fixing the structure.
I'm thinking of coming off of my privacy fence which has some 4x4 post already there( $12 savings)
placing two more off of that 8 feet away. Then using some Lattice I have around and some weed cloth I have around for the top at a slight pitch- and some for the sides.
I could staple the cloth to the lattice( at the top) and put a few support bars in the middle
( pressure treated lumber crisscrossed ) to help hold it up
so I would only need 2 4x4 posts , some pressure treated lumber for the middle and a little concrete( which I think I might have but only cost 3 or 4 bucks anyway)
Then I could plant some vines around it for permanent shade in the future.
I live in Florida and I had no problem with the wind last year. And we had very heavy winds knocked pots off the shelves. We used 2" pipe and drilled a screw through the joints into the each pipe. And the roof was held on with screws. We have brace pipe in the middle and along the sides.
The only change we will make is screw 1" pipes to the 2" ones and use the clamps to hold down the shade cloth both top(which we are doing now) and the bottoms and on the uprights.
Not a great picture as it is in a small back yard. I have over 200+ orchid cactus
We live in a very windy area and plan to make a shade for the east and west sides our our home next spring. We have plenty of sun to go with all the enchantment we have here in New Mexico. We are going to use beige shade cloth for the top of it - the infrequent rain will fall right through the fabric. We will put the shade fabric on so that we can remove it and get the heat out of the winter sun.
We have used the same fabric to make wind screens in the yard. We sewed casings at the top and bottom and suspended them between conduit. I have not stapled them, but think that the edges would stay better if they were turned under a couple of times and screwed down with a lathe strip over them or hemmed and stitched with a tough cord. The landscape fabric is sold at Home Depot.
IKEA sells a shade cover with all the hardware included; either triangular (which is fun) or rectangular. Really cheap, and it's well made. I've used this for a while this summer. Now we are going to build a permanent shade structure (pergola) in that area.
