Aluminium Greenhouse Staging
Aluminium greenhouse staging is the most popular choice when it comes to choosing staging. Light enough to be movable if needed, it is also robust, needs little if any maintenance and is affordable.
Wood may look good but aluminium is flexible in its usage. With wood you are restricted to having slats. Slats are good for air circulation around your plants but can be rather impractical when you want to pot up. You will find that quite a bit of the compost falls through the slats onto the floor and gets wasted.
With aluminium greenhouse staging you can have slats (even slats made of wood) and solid aluminium tops. This gives you a perfectly flat surface to work on. If you spill the compost, just sweep it back into the pot. It also gives a desk like surface so that you can write out the plant labels, sort out your seed packets without them disappearing through the slats, etc.
You can also have gravel tray tops than allow you to fill the tops with a thin layer of gravel to produce a micro climate for plants like alpines. Some aluminium greenhouse staging allow you to use the top as either a flat surface or a gravel tray simply by turning the top over.
The fact that tops and undershelves can be removed means that if you want, when you've finished with all your seed sowing and potting on, you can remove the top and shelves and have a frame to support your plants.
Aluminium is ideal for the greenhouse environment because it doesn't rust. However it can heat up during the day in summer. This can damage the roots of any plants that you may have standing on it. Standing the pots in trays or covering the top of the staging with something non conductive will help. Even better you can use a capillary mat on top. This will prevent the surface heating up and will allow your plants to take in moisture on those scorching hot days.
It maybe that you don't like the shininess of aluminium greenhouse staging but that doesn't need to be a problem these days as you can have it powder coated, though it does seem to be a case of green and nothing else.
One thing to be aware of when buying aluminium staging is that the corners can be sharp. To prevent cutting yourself ensure that the edges are folded, twice if possible. This folding of the edges will also improve the overall strength of the staging.
Easy to put up and take apart, aluminium greenhouse staging is the most versatile staging you can ask for, which is why it's been so popular for so long.