We are very seriously considering a relocation move into the Austin/San Antonio area later this year. We're planning a 3-week "tour" starting in mid-May, just to see if we like the area enough to plant our feet in Texas soil. To do this, we will need to sell our home, but our market here is very very good and we'll sell before we even try to buy. And to make the transition about as easy as we can, my hubby will just outright quit his job (I still can't believe we will do this, but believe me, he's been practicing the words quite often lately!!!). I trade stocks so I can work anywhere there's an internet connection. We also have enough savings that we can live without salary for some time (don't WANT to though), and we'll do the Cobra-insurance until he is gainfully employed. He is a construction superintendent with 32 years in commercial and government buildings, so we're fairly confident he'll land a job without much of a problem. (Take pity on us here -- only a mid-life crisis can explain our insanity here!)
Now that you readers know our future-life-story and you're shaking your heads, bear with me....We have some gardening questions.....As an avid gardener and keeper of an automated hobby greenhouse (mostly for orchids), I realize that my Zone 6b/7a climate in Virginia is nothing like the Zone 8 climate in the Hill Country. I've been reading alot of the posts in this forum, as well as doing some research online. I have yet to figure out how I will manage my orchid collection because a closed-in greenhouse in the Austin/San Antonio area would be a veritable oven in the summer. I'm certain that any enclosed GH would require swamp coolers to regulate the intense sun and heat.
I'd love to hear advice on what we should consider doing.....The orchids that I grow are in an 'intermediate climate' in my greenhouse. They receive 55% humidity with night drop to 60-F and a daily high of no more than 80 before the exhaust system kicks in. So, with that in mind, should we build a plastic-wrap greenhouse and grow orchids outdoors in the warm weather (maybe in a lath house w/ shade cloth?)? Would it be better to forget a greenhouse and opt for an attached sun-room of some type? Or construct a dual-purpose building that could allow all of the sides and roofing to be removed from May through October or so?? Wherever we decide to move there, it sure will be strange to not be completely indebted to The Propane Gods any more..... :-)
Any pointers, advice, or help would be greatly appreciated. And you never know....I may be your new next-door neighbor! LOL
This Year May Be "Texas Or Bust" !
Lynn,
I can sympathize with your mid-life crisis problem. With us, it was my husband's mid-life crisis. Tha's how we ended up on a ranch here in central Texas. We moved from San Jose, CA 5 years ago.
I hate the be the bearer of bad news, but the Propane Gods are still worshipped here, just not as often. I have a small 8' X 8' X 8' orchid greenhouse made of corrigated polycarbonate and a 20' X 20' that has roll up sides. The small greenhouse is heated electrically because I haven't been able to find a small enough vented propane heater. The larger greenhouse is heated with propane. This past winter, I started worshipping in mid-November. Until we discovered a wonky thermostat, we were filling a tank every other day.
In the small greenhouse, I grow dendrobiums, cattleyas, Paphs, dwarf cymbidiums, Phalaenopsis and a few other orchids that can tolerate hotter temperatures. I've had to install a swamp cooler in there. It adds humidity, but it doesn't cool it down far enough. Our well pump doesn't produce enough pressure to install a misting system, but I'm hoping I can talk my husband into a fogger. I also have an outdoor ceiling fan in there to keep the air moving. The shade cloth that covers the orchid greenhouse gives 50% shade. It's perfect for the dendrobiums and cattleyas, but the Phalaenopsis are on the floor shaded by other plants and pots. They stay a little cooler down there as well. I bought some bubble wrap and am going to use two layers inside the little greenhouse to see if it helps to keep the temperature down. On a still, hot day, even with the swamp cooler going full bore, the temperature can easily climb to over 95ºF. That's when I rush out to give everythings a squirt of water and to wet down the floor tiles.
If your orchids can't handle those temperature, you may want to consider another alternative. Rolling up the sides of the greenhouse helps somewhat, but the temperatures will get up into the 90s most of the summer.
Hi Lynn, welcome to Texas! (Okay, maybe you're just in TX via this forum, but that's good enough for me. :-) )
I know nothing about greenhouses and orchids and swamp coolers, etc, so I'm glad Veronica chimed in. But I can tell you that TX soil is a good place to plant your feet if you're going to do the mid-life crisis thing anyway (and even if you're not!)
Too bad you couldn't come a little earlier. We're having the TX Roundup in College Station April 29th. You could meet THE Dave and Trish!
Hope you get all the info you need, and let us know when you head this way. We'll all want to welcome you!
Maggie
Lynn,
We have lived in different states but my husband being a true Texan has converted me to the land here. We finally settled back here because it's relatively cheaper than other parts of the country and heck the weather is outstanding!!! I'm not a 4 seasons person. We've lived in lots of town in Texas but decided 2 years ago after several trips to San Antonio that this was home for us hopefully forever.
My husband grows orchids quite well indoors in a southern exposed window.
The climate is different but we haven't had any complaints about being able to grow what we want. We have nectarine and banana trees, several grapes, some berries and a vegetable garden which we can still enjoy tomatoes from in November!!! Plus we can have a nice winter crop of lettuce and beets.
Austin is nice but we travel a lot with work and really have found and we aren't sure why but the traffic there seems more congested than in San Antonio and it starts before the typical 5 pm rush hour, it starts piling up about 3 there. It is smaller than SA though so it depends on what you're looking for. I think traffic for the most part in SA is okay but they are talking about adding toll roads for even better traffic. Since moving here I've learned that Boerne, about 20 minutes NW of here is a GREAT town. It was in some magazine study not too long ago being named one of the cleanest and best small towns (think they only rated like 10) in America. We'd like to settle on some land there someday in the future.
Aimee
Lynn, I know an orchid grower near Fredericksburg. I will try to call her and see what she does. I don't know if she's a DG member. Maybe I can get her to join and then she can talk to you here. Do you raise them to sell or just for you?
I have a greenhouse, but not for orchids. I just store my frost-tender plants and plants that still need to go in the ground. And since I've joined DG, there are an awful lot of those.:) I have an electric heater that I bought from Charlie's Greenhouse or someplace like that. I also have an automated vent system operated by a thermostat that opens the vent and turns on the fan. That uses more electricity than the heater, because of course the heat is more often the problem. I wonder if northern greenhouse owners have to use their heaters and their vent systems in the same day as often as I do.
Come a little further south and you will only need to worship the propane god about 3 days a year. Of course you will have to pay homage to the electricity god for the other 362 days. There are several orchid growers here. One over in Rancho Viejo has a super nice, tinted glass, climate controlled orchid house.
I want to thank everyone for their input!! I am just growing orchids as a hobby, and have no intention of going into commercial growing, so all expenses involved are not recaptured in any form of a profit (except for my personal enjoyment). Bettydee, I really appreciated hearing about your GH setups and would love to learn more about your roll-up sides on the large GH you own. Is your larger GH a polycarb unit or is it sided with a type of plastic?
By the way, we have an AquaFog fogger and the plants in the GH do very well with that machine. Ours is suspended on a back rafter and it is turned to intentionally avoid a direct-fog on the plants. One hanging plant, a Dischidia, does get a strong dose of close-range humidity and the diminuitive leaves are just as healthy and plump as can be!! I know what you mean about the forced air propane heaters. We have a Hot Dawg and felt it was over-kill in our 9x14 GH. We decided to take the ceiling mounted unit off the ceiling and situate it on the ground. We not only have a better heat distribution that way (hot air rises and it's more efficient), but we have no problem overheating plants now.
Aimee, We do love vegetable gardening, and have already checked out the time charts for the Zone there. It still boggles our minds to think of the number of frost-free days and how EARLY things can be planted!! My hubby was shocked at your mention of Banana trees. Do they stay out year round, or are they grown in containers and wintered indoors?
Also, Aimee, I sure have appreciated hearing about the congestion and the town named Boerne. We will definately check out that town to learn more about it. Interesting that Austin has more traffic problems than San Antonio. Maybe the clusters in each of the cities are not well distributed, or maybe it's got to do with the ability to move the commuters on the highways in and around each city? Still, those are real concerns for anyone working in either city.
Calalily and Maggie, Thanks so much for the great Texas-style welcome! We are really looking forward to our trip. We have already rototilled our vegetable garden area under, and we've planted grass seed to put the area back to green grass. We felt that prospective owners may not want to have a vegetable garden (esp. when they know how much "work" they'll have with my perennial beds and a greenhouse!).
Silverfluter, yes up in this area, there can be a wide range of temperature within a day, esp. when it's seasonal-change time. It's not uncommon to have the exhaust fan and heater going within a short time of one another. Drives me crazy, but you know how it is....."anything for healthy plants" !!
Now for a few more questions --
What is the humidity in these areas? We can't get a good definitive charting of the humidity, so it's probably best to ask the natives!
How is the water quality? Is the water "hard"? Are there a great deal of minerals in the water?? Do people use water softeners?
I have read of the caliche problems in some areas. Do any of you have this problem? How do you garden?
Lynn,
May I add my welcome to Texas as well. Any where in the Hill Country is outstanding in my book. I live in the greater Houston area, but spend many days and weekends in SA and parts north of town. You really need to take the time to travel all of the area west of Austin and north of San Antonio. Too many places to mention, but is you want a country home or city home all are available. I like everything in the Blanco - Luckenback - Fredricksburg - San Marcus - New Braunfels area. That is a lot of square miles - mostly rural. (Texans, sorry if I missed a few - Bandera - Kerrville, etc.)
Like you, I wasn't born here, but got here as soon as I could. USAF showed me SA and I knew where I would be the rest of my life. Met and married my wife in SA 37 years ago - go back for a week at the Menger every year.
One big difference with Texas - travel distances are best measured in time not miles. Comute from my home to downtown Houston can be a 1 hour ordeal, but I can be in Austin in less than 3 hours, SA in 3.5. Galveston in 45 min. El Paso, however, requires a whole day - Houston to El Paso is as far as El Paso to LA.
Humidity and climate:
As a friend of mine once said, "In Texas, there's Summer and February".
Hill Country does have some humid days, but not like the Gulf coast where 90/90 is normal in the peak of summer. It gets hot in the Hill Country, but cools off nicely when the sun sets.
Bill
Lynn,
I live about 60 miles southeast of Austin. Average rainfall for this area is 37" a year. The humidity is not as bad as it is nearer the coast. It usually ranges between 35% and 60%, but can get more humid. When hurricane Rita hit east Texas last year, our humidity plunged to 15%. On average, it receives around 600 chill hours. Texas weather is one of extremes. I sure hope we don't see another drought year as bad as last year. The other extreme — floods — is also common. We were told to take a look at the property in a heavy downpour because what looks fine now may be underwater later.
We have a ranch that abutts the Colorado River, but we are on the high side (315' above sea level) of the river. The ranch across the river from us floods whenever the river runs high. We have deep sandy soil on most of the ranch. However, limestone underlies most of Texas. The farther west you go, the shallower the soil. The top soil, in parts of the Hill Country, is measured in inches or parts of inches.
After speaking with a geologist, I found most of Texas has hard water with a high mineral content. There are exceptions. Here on the ranch, our water is soft, but high in sodium and other minerals.
My heater is mounted close to the floor and has a back-up propane tank. My husband purchased the 20' X 20' greenhouse from FarmTek. The greenhouse cover is a re-enforced plastic. Two opposite sides have large openings that close with long zippers. The other two sides roll up all the way. I have had the thermostat set at 50º these past two winters. The lag time dropped the temperature down to 46-47º before it headed back up, but it stayed above that the rest of the night. Being able to roll the sides up are really a help during the summer. The plastic is opaque but lets in enough light for my variegated Brugmansias to thrive and bloom. The zippers are the weak spot though. I've had the greenhouse for 16 months and 2 of the 4 zippers are damaged. I'll have to think of a way to seal the opening this coming winter or buy replacement sides. I've looked into the Aquafog foggers. Is the humidity well distributed throughout your greenhouse? Does it work well with water that has a high mineral content?
As far as the traffic in Austin goes, the story I've heard many times from people who've lived in Austin many years is that the town planners laid the town out with the intention of discouraging newcomers from moving there. Sounds nuts, but when you get there and drive around in it you may agree. :) We've lived in Fredericksburg 15 years and would much rather drive in SA that Austin. Boerne is a nice size town, but it's growing quickly. There are many small towns to investigate that are close to SA and Austin.
As far as quality of the dirt goes, that can change abruptly. Our dirt is very deep and fairly good, but north of town maybe 15 miles out, it turns to granite country. There are some areas close by that are extremely rocky (2 rocks per grain of dirt). Most people in Kerrville complain that all they have is kaliche and in some cases that's not an exaggeration. Htop in SA says she has a thin layer of dirt over limestone rock. Her solution is to build raised beds.
The water is very hard here. My SIL has to rent her water treatment system, because buying it would be a waste of time. They have a well drilled into the Trinity aquifer and the untreated water is orange. My MIL lives within 2 miles of her and doesn't have orange water, but she's on a different aquifer.
So as you can tell, there is huge variation. The temperature is usually about 5 degrees cooler in Fredericksburg than SA and the change seems to happen right around Boerne. That's probably because cities tend to be hotter. I think I our average rainfall is about 23 " a year. But we are in a droubt now and have been for some time.
The comment about the seasons of summer and Feb is pretty accurate. Sometimes it alternates back and forth.LOL
Hope this helps.
Mary Lee
Not all of the Gulf Coast of Texas is as humid as Houston. My friend from the Island went to New Orleans this week, she said she's about to die from the humidity! We do get a constant breeze which can be a challenge to gardeners. Our soil is rich and no rocks at all, but also no rain most of the year.
Mary Lee, I hate to drive in Austin, it's a nightmare! I don't mind San Antonio.
You have all made us quite excited to get down to Texas! I have shared your responses w/ my hubby and we both agree that Texas just sounds like it's the state for us to move into!!
Here, we have 'hard water' but I don't remember what our raw, unfiltered water measures out to be in PPM. Suffice it to say, if you want relatively decent suds, and no calcified deposits on things, it is best to add a water softener. For us, we opted to not use the typical pelleted salt, though. We use potassium and even though it is more expensive, the miniscule amount that can be found in water is better for plants and humans than sodium-chloride (aka 'salt'). About 15 miles from here, towards the Allegheny Mountains, the water is much harder and more iron is in the water. Actually, in some areas, there is so much iron that the rust-colored deposits are fairly common unless a water softener is used.
Bettydee -- Our greenhouse has water that is piped from our home, and we opted to run the pipes from the water softener. Our water system does have a pressurized tank, so I'm not sure if the AquaFog would be as effective without water pressure, but such a small dribble is used that I'm not sure. You might want to contact the manufacturer and ask.
The water used in the greenhouse is softened water, from potassium, since it's piped from the house. The water that is piped into the greenhouse is further filtered with a very fine-particulate filter that removes whatever is remaining in the water supply. This filter was added after trial-and-error with the AquaFog. We had a number of occasions where the system seemed clogged. After fiddling with it and clearing the opening where water was released for the fan to disperse the water in fog-form, we decided to try a fine particle filter. It worked. (Note on potassium-based water softening agent: From my research, I learned that this type of water is supposed to be safe and relatively 'good' for many plants, including orchids. And speaking from my own experience, my pickiest orchids do not show signs of suffering from water quality. )
I think that the AquaFog does a very good job of water-fogging. Of course, it must be used along w/ some type of basic circulating fan if you want the optimum humidity coverage in your GH. The device is actually quite simple and works off of the concept of a small hose feeding a tiny stream of water into the face of a fan. Water touches fan blades, shatters into water beadlets, then is fan-forced into the nearby air. I will definately choose this brand of fogger again.
In this region, we have limestone and shale. Ironically, the Shenandoah Valley is pretty much divided by Interstate 81. On the western side of I-81, there is limestone. Orchards are on that portion of the Valley. Azaleas and Rhododendrons do very well there too. On the eastern side of I-81, where the shale is, well....if you grow any fruit trees, azaleas, and rhododendrons, get your pick axe, acid-compost, and say many prayers because it'll take more than soil to achieve quality fruit or the acid-loving bushes.
Naturally, I chose to live on the eastern side of the Shenandoah Valley. And yes, I own a few pick axes....LOL....Some of our soil is tolerable, but some areas on our property is what I call solid-shale-shelf. No kidding....dynamite is required. We have a Bobcat that can't break through some of these areas. Luckily for us, the shelf zone is behind the couple of cleared acres that we use. All of my perennial beds are raised beds. Not only do I think there is benefit of added tilth, but raised beds aerate better, and look lovely. Well, to me they do......
Mary Lee, Don't worry that we will chose Boerne to be our homesite. I agree with what you said....EVERYONE will head over there during the next few years. Not far from me is Winchester VA and it was one of those chosen All American Cities. YIKES! They all headed for the hills and we have a population explosion!
I heard on the news Monday that Montgomery County Maryland (where we originated from) has a median home price of....... $425,000 and the area is now having to enact new legislation to protect home buyers due to the newest scams with mortgages. I guess that 'creative financing' is getting so creative that the government is considering it to be, well, a scam. As they say: "caveat emptor".
Personally, I'm going for a zero-balance due! Keep it all in the right perspective and everything will be okay.
Bill, I had to say that we loved your statement: "In Texas, there's Summer and February".
Thanks for the laugh. I'm sure it's true, but it's just such an easy thing to say to someone, and we'll be certain to use it.
We think the Hill Country looks fantastic. We love fly-fishing, kayaking, and hiking. There are plenty of playgrounds in that area to keep us happy for the rest of our lives, I think.