Cages and Protection for our Orchids




These are some of the cages in preparation for orchid protection on Hutton Roof

I have at various times been fortunate to have been given off-cuts of fencing wire etc which has enabled me to build cages for our vunerable special orchids.

The tools I have used to assist in this are as follows:

Pliers and Fencing Pliers

Usually the fencing wire has been supplied in either flat lengths or the end of a roll situation.
So if I take the end of the roll and measure approx so that I will have a cage of say 10" diameter, which is usually sufficient for most specimens, yet this can be altered according to needs. So I would need to unravel the roll of wire fencing (which is usually approx one metre width), then cut a piece off the roll at approx 2ft with my "fencing pliers".  So now we have a flat piece of cage fencing wire approx 2ft wide, and here I will place in front of me and roll it into a cage shape. Got to this stage I would then again use my fencing pliers and make a cut at one end of the wire all the way up the cage. Then swoping over from fencing pliers to ordinary pliers, I would manipulate the cut edges of wire and secure to the other edge by bending and twisting the cut wire.  After doing all the edges I have made my cage.  Now as a rule a one metre width cage would be far too big, I would normally cut down the cage so that I have one of at least 17" and the remainder will be used up later with another cut off and joined up.