Another solution

[GeneS]

Eighteen months after moving to the central coast from the, much hotter and drier, interior Orange County, I've begun to understand a little more about cacti culture.

Much of my collection is fairly hardy stock. Matucana, and other Peruvians from SA and Ferocactus, Echinocactus, Thelocactus, Echinocereus etc from NA. These are generally much happier here now that I've the watering schedules figured out.

The real problem has been the amaller Mexican heat lovers like turbis, arios and like.

I have added an excess cold frame obtained from a friend about 2 weeks ago.
It holds 8 std 17x17' flats which, as you can see, I had no trouble filling.

I tried several positons while monitering temp against ambient and wound up where it sits now. Daytime temps go to 25-30F above ambient with the lid open as shown. Closing the lid about sundown allows the retained heat to keep things in the low to mid 40's overnight(+10 to ambient). Should be just the ticket for these guys.

Cheers ... GeneS

[daiv]

Cold frames are interesting to me. I remember when visiting C&J, how amazed I was to see so many of them there.

Do you have to lift and close the lid every day? Seems like that might cause problems when vacation time comes up.