Next month I'm building a PVC plant stand to house my succulents. It will have 5 inch legs, The first shelf will be 3 feet tall and the top two shelves will be 18 inchs high, It will be 2 foot wide, and a little longer then four foot long.


Each shelf will have 3 two tube shop lights using 32 watt 6500K daylight bulbs.

The bottom shelf will be for a blue bird jade and a normal jade once they get big enough.

adamgreen.

Your project sounds great. I hope you'll share pictures when it's done.

Why 5 inch PVC for legs? That is huge pipe. Good luck and don't forget to hit it with paint for the uv

I meant the legs will be 5 inchs tall.

I made a stand for my 75 gal. fish tank. Used 2 x 4's doubled and across. 4 ft. long x 2 ft. wide. I used the new T-8's shop lights. They are brighter and cheeper to use. I used them where I used to work (before retireing). My plants loved them. I installed those 4 ft. wall mirrors across the back side to increase the light to the plants. On sale for $5 each. I also bought a 2 ft. x 2 ft. mirror for the ends. Made a nice boxed in area with the front open for viewing. Don't know if I will use a rolled up plastic sheet for the front or not.

Mirror idea sounds like a great idea to help the plants indoors with the lighting issue!! Thanks for sharing.

I meant the legs will be 5 inchs tall.
i knew that ...

Well I collected all the materials except for two one inch tee's and some shoplights for the other shelves. I won't need more shop lights for now and I will get the one inch tee's in about a week.

I will be building most of the plant shelf over the weekend. I will post pics next week.

Adam,
I lucked out this week at Home Depot. They had one opened box of a shop lite. Marked mounting chain missing. One other box was pretty banged up also. I asked the salesman about the price. It was marked $19.95. He marked it down to $10 and I asked about the other box, Marked it down as well. So I got both shop lights for $20. These are two tube T8's with pull chain switchs. Of course the bulbs are extra. Almost as much as the lights. I am using bright white bulbs. Two pack was about $9. I used these at where I used to work with great suscess with plants there. I only wish they had two more shop lights I could buy. Those were the last two they had. Many places have those wall mirrors on sale for about $5. Good to use on sides to increase the light output. I almost got my stand finished. I'll show a picture of it as well when done.
Stush

Here are the pics of the plant stand I built I will add more shop lights as needed.

Adam,
Great job. It looks way neater and cleaner than mine. I noticed a slight bowing in the shelf. That can be easily corrected by adding small strips of wood at the front and back. Can even paint them white to match the pvc pipe.



Stush

Good idea, Stush. Certainly would help to reinforce the shelf if plan to add more to your interesting collection, Adam.

Looks like you have room for some more plants now

Now that I have built it, it looks like there is room for 4 large jades on the bottom shelf.
So eventually I will have 4 jades on the bottom shelf in 14 in pots but it will take years to
get to that point.

The four jades will be a blue bird jade, a normal jade, a gollum jade , and a crosby's compact or hummels sunset
which do you think would be better.

Stush2019 said:Adam,
Great job. It looks way neater and cleaner than mine. I noticed a slight bowing in the shelf. That can be easily corrected by adding small strips of wood at the front and back. Can even paint them white to match the pvc pipe.



Stush

Well I modified some plans I found on the internet. The original version of the plant stand didn't have
wooden boards on the shelves. It was just meant to hold those mini green house things that you start
seeds in.

I plan on fixing the bowing problem by replaceing the two lengths of pipe connected by a Tee with a single
length of pipe front and back on the 2nd and 3rd shelves.

I don't know exactly when I will do it The plants will be fine for right now.

here is a link to the original plans: http://www.tsflowers.com/plant...

I've upgraded my plant stand I will post pics soon.

looking forward to it!

Here are the pics of my updated plant stand, it still slouches a little bit but not as much.

Looks like when the full shelf of plants get taller, they may have to move to the Penthouse...?

Great job. looks good.