Yeah Marcia, what's that old Ben Franklin quote ? " An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure " ? Smart guy that 'ol Ben. I wasn't even new to Florida as such when those new trees died, - originally moved from New York City to the Upper Keys where I lived for 13 yrs before moving here. But living in the Keys is like living in The Wizard of Oz Land as far as gardening goes. Growing mango trees was so easy there, got complacent, but woke up quickly after moving here ! ( smile ) My 2nd set of mango trees all had Christmass tee lights strung thru them Nov 1st to March 1st. Even had some old sheets to build a small tent over each if it got really bad. Lost no more fruit trees to cold nights after that ! Don't want to sound like I'm complaining tho,..far from it. Was out early ( 7:05 AM ) this morning putting my big garbage bin at the curb and had to pause and take in the scene. Only 58 degrees, - brisk, but I loved it. Sun just peeping over the eastern horizon, casting a warm looking glow to the lawn. But wait, - something different,..NO WIND for a change ! Love being a retiree in SW Florida,...those concrete canyons of NYC are just a faint memory now ! TBTG ! C'mon Mother Nature, try throwing another curve ball at me, will be ready this time ! ( smile )

I found this thread while Googling.. see it's a few months old but thought I'd post a follow-up question anyway. There was a Carolina Jessamine that was growing along the top of a chain link fence by the driveway of the house I just moved into. It was woody & not getting much sun because of a tall oak tree but still flowering enough for me to fall in love - so I trimmed it back & killed it in the process. I bought a new one a couple of weeks ago & I'm hoping it will grow along the rail on my front porch. My question - would it benefit from a plant light or bulb? It's in the only spot in the yard that gets a very little bit of sun so it's doing ok, but soon the 2nd oak tree will take care of that, unless I trim some branches, which I'm reluctant to do. I'm just wondering if I put a little grow light in that corner of the porch if it would make a difference. Thanks in advance for any opinions or tips.

Busy day - Macbook has been crashing, got that post out in between crashes. Worked with Apple Care on the phone, think they fixed it. So yes, IR Scan during blower door test. I'm sure I will get all the details, but he said it's not uncommon, but because of the drafty house, he could not get the fan up to a certain level. Forget what that number was or the value of that number. So the house did not get that cold either. The blower was running for a long time, and the house cooled down from 70 to about 63. I expected much worse after you guys wrote about it in here. I think I expected the inside to feel like outside. Anyway, he pointed out the edges of all walls, at the corners and top rails where you can see there is no insulation. I think you can clearly see that the walls are insulated ok. Attic access panels are killers. We dont even try to fake it here, just a thin wood or sheetrock panel, we have 3 access points. He suggested buying a can of Mastic, spread it on the back and press on insulation, it would help. He suggested sealing any recessed lights, and using the spray fluffy insulation in attics. For one of the attics that has an air handler, he suggests creating a conditioned attic space by insulating the walls, but I dont think I agree with that. For the Crawl, he first suggests I stop any water entry, yes there is right now, might be hard to fix. I have two Sumps down there, but somehow water gets in, and just hangs out on the floor, never more than 1/16 inch deep, but spreads out. Then he says insulating the walls of the crawl to make it air tight, no venting. Or the other approach is to insulate the ceiling or main floor - floor. It's insulated now, but he says it's not doing anything, Its installed backwards, and only a few inches thick . He said I could go with a spray foam, a little pricey, or a real thick high R value insulation. I will share the report when it comes. Was nice having the house warm over the last 24 hours, but I used well over 300 KV in that time.

"I ordered some of those $4.40 10W LED floodlights. Within 2 weeks, I should be able to post here whether the LED chips inside can easily be changed." fred o connor, I now have two models, HK-LD300 and Plighting CLEF120V10DL and neither will allow you to change the LED chip without also changing the drivers because the installed drivers are 25-38V and the grow light LED chips are 9-11V. But, for what it's worth, HK-LD300 has much better quality than CLEF120V10DL which, unlike HK-LD300, has unmarked drivers with plastic cases and actually uses 4.5 watts of power. Also, HK-LD300 has a larger aluminum body with larger cooling fins. It would be easier and cheaper for you to mount 10W LEDs on a 48" x 2.5" x 1/8" aluminum bar, with 60mm cooling fans, like I did with the blue LEDs shown here: http://www.general-cathexis.com/images/LED1.jpg http://www.general-cathexis.com/images/LED2.jpg http://www.general-cathexis.com/images/LED3.jpg If interested, I will give you more details.