Shop review

from 2011 01 UK

Shop reviews

Some people will think I’m a bit mad to use only bloom nutrients throughout my plants’ life, but I have never found this has stunted or affected my growth/bloom at all.

The ladies started their cycle on a mild solution of feed water at around 1.0 EC for a week and then I started upping it at the start of week 2 and it finished at 1.4 by the end of week three of veg. Usually around this time my plants are around the 12-18-inch mark and are showing off a nice sturdy main stem and plenty of branching with deep green leaves wanting more light.

Flowering

The plants have had a great start and are all looking healthy and are uniform in growth, so now is the time to move them in to the all important flowering room. I love this room, it being where the magic happens. To see a load of cuttings come through and finish coated in resin and stinking to high heaven is just wondrous. Frankly, I could lose myself in there all day looking at the glistening flowers plumping up all around me.

As I’m using the Wilma 10 pot, moving the plants around is really quite easy as I can remove the drippers, pick the pot up and move it on to another 10-pot system inside the flowering room.

Once the plants have adapted to the new environment the feeding schedule begins again. We start with a 1.4 EC under a 150W HPS lamp with an electronic ballast for supposed better use of energy. The lights are slightly smaller than a 250W but are extremely bright and give off very little heat close to the lamp. The light is placed about 16-inches above the plants for the first four days to give the plants a chance to adapt to the sudden jump in light intensity, and then moved down to 10-inches from the canopy by day 10.

As with all HPS lighting, the plants picked up a bit of vigour and had a little growth spurt for a week or two, which pushed them to a height of around 60-80cm.

Feed was been upped to 1.6 EC now as the plants were starting to react to the change in photoperiod (light regime e.g. 12/12 or 18/6) and we are already seeing white pistils starting to emerge from each flower, growth looks impressive and well formed considering it is only getting light form a 150W!

Over the next two weeks the EC level is upped to around 1.8 and things are looking good for the super skunks under the 150W's. The buds are starting to form defined nuggets and all the plant is looking as healthy as she possibly could. This is when we crack out the House and Garden Shooting Powder, which is worth its weight in gold. This little treasure gives the plants a mighty phosphorous boost for three weeks (starting at week 5 of flowering, up to week 8, before flushing for a week for good measure at the end), and it has a massive effect on the size, smell and taste of your harvest. Every time I use this it amazes me. You can literally see the buds fatten up every time you are in the room. I’ve had Buds that have doubled in size after using this stuff and they always stay tight and dense.

By the start of Week 6 I am starting to feel a little bit anxious. I’m looking at my garden and instead of seeing the fat, luscious buds in front of me I’m used to seeing, I have smaller than usual buds that look a little bit airy and lacking something!

I checked my temperatures, which stay around 22-24 C constantly, the nutrient solution and the humidity and they all are perfectly acceptable. Could it be the lights? I know that I’ve only got a 150W over these, but if the hype was correct I should have my normal fat glistening buds by now. Instead I have four plants in the middle that are looking ok not brilliant, and six plants on the edges that just need more light than they are getting.

This is a pain as it means that the plants are not using the nutrient as efficiently as they could be because the lack of light intensity means photosynthesis happens at a much slower rate!

Unfortunately, come harvest time the buds hadn’t swelled much more and the overall dried yield was only a fraction of what I’ve achieved with the same set up (excluding the lights). But judging by the ever-present stench of the super skunk, she didn’t seem to care that she didn’t get as much light as she wanted, as she still stank to high heaven. Plus the taste was just as good, so all was not lost.

OVERALL

These 150W lights are a good alternative to running a 250W but in no way compare to the mighty 600W. I would recommend using them for veg lights or as a flowering light for the first 3-4 weeks, then up the wattage to a minimum of 400W for the remaining time. Unfortunately they just don’t deliver the goods to flower a decent crop of tight buds from start to finish.

Part 2 of this article which will cover 20 super skunks grown under a 300W LED bloom light, will be printed in two editions time. In the next issue I will be covering the mother/vegetation room. With tips and pics of propagation, vegetative stage and storage space within the grow room, along with some of the essentials that will be needed to make your grow go a little bit smoother.

Happy growing and smoking fellow stoners!

CleverGreen, Telford

A unique shopping experience best describes CleverGreen, Telford. The shop is one of a kind due to its location in the roof of a large premises and the fact that it’s the only Hydroponics Hypermarket in the UK. Mick, the owner, will serve all your horticultural requirements, no matter how big or small and can provide over 15 years of horticultural experience, as well as an established network of suppliers so any technical queries are going to be answered!

CleverGreen was established in May 2007 and in that time have distributed all over the UK. The website: www.clevergreen.co.uk is increasing its traffic everyday as Mick is keen to establish his business both online and in retail. able include Canna, Ferro, BioBizz, Atami B’Cuzz, Vitalink & Advanced.

CleverGreen can offer 32 different types of hydroponic shades; the shop also has 35 different Hydroponic Grow lamps in stock and particularly good saving can be made on their budget shades available in store.

All sizes of Secret Jardin hydroponics tents available from stock and online and Clever Green are official distributors of the TrimPro trimming machines.

Be sure to drop in!

CleverGreen: Park Street, Telford, Shropshire TF1 3AE (t) 01952 257 200

Bush Planet / Grow City / City Grow

The first “germination cell” from Bushplanet was opened in July 1997 in the Viennese city centre. The guys signed a contract with an already existing business to sub-let just 20 square meters. This made the small scale Bushplanet the first enterprise in Vienna where professional grow shop gear and head shop products were sold over the counter - in practice, it was essentially the very first real Head & Growshop in the Austrian capital.

Thanks to the rapidly rising number of customers it was soon apparent that more space was needed, and about 18 months after opening, the whole shop was taken over for use – bringing the space up to around 300 square metres.

Since 1998, Bushplanet had been taking advantage of the Austrian legislative situation, whereby it is legal to offer hemp plants ‘for decorative purposes’. This was the beginning of a mixed industry that further crystallized out over the course of the following years. As a consequence of the growing demand there was even a real “clone factory” set up which, in addition to its own selections, also delivered a lot of original genetic material from Paradise Seeds, Greenhouse and Advanced Hydroponics.

After Bushplanet had become the first Austrian firm issued with a government permit for the hemp plant, the production of clones flourished. That lasted until 2003, after which repression from the government increased and more and more often a grow op ended with the plant material being seized by the police.

There was another reason why the Austrian prosecutor had specifically targeted our company: co-founder and business leader Stivi Wolyniec was not in the business just to simply make money from the hemp plant; he threw himself into the cause whole-heartedly, and pled for legalisation of this ancient culture plant. To this end he organised among other things the ‘hemp fire’, a political demonstration with the aim of full and open distribution of cannabis. The demonstrations took place from 1998 until 2003, each year attracting masses of people into the Viennese city centre. was not prolonged. Hemp was no longer classified as a decorative plant, but once it had ripened, was seen as a THC producer. Where hemp had once been seen as a simple agricultural product, it was now criminalised and Stivi was convicted as an offender. According to the court he was responsible for bringing to market a huge quantity of THC, which landed him a 20 month suspended sentence. So the focus returned to the core business that had grown steadily.

In 2006 the Bushplanet team began to brainstorm over the idea of how they might completely re-invent what was meant by the term “grow shop”. Actually, it was anything but easy to find a suitable location for this ambitious project. But eventually everything was sorted out: we were given access to space. Lots and lots of space.

While there were only a few weeks to go before the Cultiva Hennep Beurs, we threw as much manpower as possible into the task of finding a suitable location, and this was how we came across and moved in to the perfect place on the outskirts of Vienna. In the direct vicinity of Europe's largest shopping centre, SCS, and well supplied with road connections bringing traffic from all points of the compass.

The idea had become a reality, but there was still the need for a competent partner. After the presentation of the Bushplanet GROW CITY concept at the Cultiva beurs, suddenly everything developed a rapid tempo. The feedback was gigantic and leading entrepreneurs from the cannabis industry were immediately prepared to support as partners the concept of Europe's biggest Grow-Center.

With a presentation area of 1000 square meters and another 1000 square metres of shop space, now all customers, from beginners to professionals, could be helped throughout the grow process. And all of this served in at least five European languages. Whether you turn up asking a question in German or English, Slovakian, Czech or Hungarian, you will be given a knowledgeable answer in your own language.

The large-scale ambiance of this GrowCenter makes a stroll along the aisles of the different departments a feast for all the senses. Here you can not only see, ask and listen, but also smell, feel and test, as well as check out many different and complete working grow systems (with a host of plants in them), under realistic conditions on the premises. So you as a customer can get a very accurate picture of how an appropriately designed set-up is put together and how it operates.

You’ll also find yourself at the right place for asking questions. The 25 members of staff are all hemp lovers, who between them have more than 100 years of cannabis growing experience. And they all honour the Bushplanet motto: 'Grow Together', which means that at for every problem a fitting, custom-made solution is sought. In this, attention to the individual customer central. So you can be absolutely sure that with us you are in the right hands. Roman, the man from Bushplanet GROW CITY, has so far developed, mounted and tested the lighting set ups of more than 300 Bushplanet customers.

In addition to such classical knowledge, Bushplanet GROW CITY offers its partners a platform for the presentation of new products and services. So there are branch-specific workshops and there are courses held, such as on how to work with and slice plants for cloning.

The plan to establish Europe's largest growing centre has been achieved, and with it the long-held dream to establish Bushplanet GROW CITY as an epicentre of cannabis culture has been made real. Should there ever be a shop sign painted above the window, that says something about the fairly new, then it will be an image of contemporary design, with the emphasis on multifacetedness and individual attention.

In order to be able to offer all our customers from Vienna who need to make use of public transport a more optimal service, in mid-November 2010 the new Bushplanet CITY GROW shop was

The place where it all began: Der Bushplanet Head & Growshop in the centre of Vienna Headshop-area in Bushplanet Head & Growshop GROW CITY – Europe’s biggest GrowCentre at the edge of Vienna

Big, modern, on top of the game – at GROW CITY there’s something for everyone opened. This outlet is situated barely 500 metres from our head office, in a discrete garden. Discretion is a concept that we - just like our customers - attach a lot of value to. That is something we learned to our cost on visiting one of our branches. After we had made a couple of photos in the shop in which a customer was visible, we were approached by this man with a request to re-do the photos with him not recognisable. We guaranteed him immediately photos in which he no longer appears in shot.

Bushplanet CITY GROW offers in its 400 square metres the most extensive selection of growing gear and grow supplies in Vienna. In our building you can choose from an extensive selection of products, and our other affiliate shops also offer the complete range, combined with any kind of advice you can imagine.

Bushplanet is really easy to find on the Internet too: type in: www.bushplanet. com and you can see our entire range before you have even set foot in one of our shops. And if you already now what you want you can simply order it online. But deep in our hearts we, the Bushplanet team, much prefer that we meet our customers personally, so that they can fully profit from our wealth of experience and extensive know-how.