Growing Orchids in IKEA cabinets

At Isle of Portland Orchids we grow all of our warm orchids indoors and find that IKEA display cabinets (MILSBO) provide an easy and attractive option with glass shelves and a resilient powder coated finish.

We adapt the cabinets by adding grow lights and pond liner ‘trays’

The lights we use are Barrina T5 1ft and 2ft LED battens). Rewiring to a new plug allows us to use an existing hole in the top of the cabinet. We attach the battens to the underside of the glass shelves with clear silicone sealant.

We use one 2ft batten for each shelf in low light areas of the house, and 1ft battens for weaning seedlings and in bright areas of the house.

To grow mounted plants we remove the shelves and hand weld mesh from small holes drilled in the roof of the cabinet. We then add lights on a roofing batten down the centre front of the cabinet,

We water every day, or every other day, with a pump sprayer filled with rainwater and feed to a maximum of 500µs 

We don’t use fans for air movement as we find excessive humidity is never a problem in our warm dry house.