The Two Birds, One Stone Solution

We always have some sort of project going on here - to keep us out of trouble, you know.  Here is our "Two Birds, One Stone Solution Project"!  This project started with the aim of minimizing the accumulation of afternoon heat along the west side of the original cabana (bird #1).  Over the years we have made several attempts to do this, with limited success.  The addition of a partial veranda roof to provide shade helps quite a bit, but is not sufficient and sometimes it seems to act like an oven, trapping heat under the roof.  Planting a replacement tree for the big old fig tree that fell down after Hurricane Earl sideswiped us with tropical force winds in 2016 was a great idea that will yield some relief in about 10 more years; the coral bean tree we planted in 2017 is still pretty short! The shade curtain that we hung along the edge of the veranda roof seemed to have helped a bit and yet at times contributed to the oven-effect.  We needed a new plan.  Dennis found a very tough screening material that filters out something like 90% of UV light.  We got a huge roll of 7 foot wide material in white to use in a new design.  

Very durable UV screening material.

Rather than have it hang straight down like the shade curtain we are replacing, we incorporated the rolling planters (that we have never used to great advantage) as a wall over which to drape and secure the screening material. farther away from the wall of the cabana.  The planters had been located on the sunset balcony (located just under the satellite dish in the photo below) and were very much out of sight, out of mind.  

The advantage to using the rolling planters rather than installing a permanent support is that these can be moved up against the house and the screening taken down if a hurricane comes our way.  

We still have plenty of room on the 17 ft wide veranda to use the clothes line and to access the back door and the shed door.  And underneath the roof there is plenty of room to get to the battery bank and have space to tend the plants.

The battery bank is the long white box along the wall of the house.  The shed door is at the far end.  Take a look at the shadow of the fabric on the veranda floor.

A major drawback of the former shade cloth curtain that hung straight down from the edge of the roof was that it limited the natural airflow.  This design doesn't hinder the breeze as much, yet keeps the direct sun out.

You can see the shadow here, too.  And you can also see how much room there is for breezes to pass through.  

The fine mesh of the screen creates an amazing mist when it rains!  The plants love it, which brings us to bird #2 - growing space for tender plants.  

After 2 inches of rainfall in less than 2 hours, the plants look great!

Ornamental palm seedlings in the black pots on the decking and pots with provision tree seeds on the shelf.

I have big plans for the planters.  I am going to re-install the sections of rain gutter as containers for micro-greens and small herbs and create supports for the climbing Malabar spinach.  Pots of other assorted kitchen herbs will find a home there - in fact the Cuban thyme is already there and thriving.  This will be the perfect place  to start seedlings for things destined to be planted in the raised beds or directly in the ground like the palms and provision trees.  This time (I promise!) I will tend the rain gutter planters more faithfully.