A reputable dealer will tell you all about your shade cloth before you order it. A shade cloth is made from soft, almost plastic like feeling, materials that you will lay over the top of your greenhouse roof, and about one half of the way down the walls for maximum coverage. You will want to install a shade cloth with clips and ropes as needed or provided so that when a summer storm does come, your shade cloth doesn’t fly away!
There are many sizes of shade cloth sizes available to choose from, you might even like them so much that you will use one over your dog run or over the play area for your children’s sandbox. The shade cloth is used to keep your plants from getting too hot during the hottest summer months. There are also a variety of densities that you can buy when getting a shade cloth, to keep different amounts of sunlight out of the greenhouse. While the shade cloth does make some shade in the greenhouse it also allows sunlight to pass through the covering that your plants need to grow and to thrive. A higher density shade cloth is used to grow plants that are more light sensitive where lighter density shade cloths are used to keep the greenhouse temperature lower.
You can also opt to use special greenhouse paints on the panels of your greenhouse, but this requires a little more work than installing the greenhouse shade cloth. As the end of summer approaches, it is important to remember to take off the shade cloth for the year. You will take off the shade cloth to allow the greenhouse to heat up during the day as needed and to provide the maximum amount of light during the winter months. A quality type shade cloth will last you years. Rolling up your shade cloth and storing it over the winter somewhere that does not freeze will give you the best results and the shade cloth will last even longer.