Hmm. In SoCal, regular date palms (Phoenix dactylifera) are showing up everwhere, particularly in shopping malls and condo projects. I'm guessing the reason is that date groves are being ripped out for housing projects in the Coachella Valley, and thousands of cheap, mature palm trees are now available. So the question is: are your palms really *Canary Island* dates?

You're right Stan. About four months after the freeze, i went to Six Flags in Valencia, CA and it looked like they got hit pretty hard. Everything was recovering, but the dwarf phoenix were bare trunks, as were the hundreds of king palms and bird of paradise. Im sure they look like nothing happened now. What has me surprised is this kentia. I've posted photos of it before but it just grows so fast. This one was part of a trio when the freeze of 07 hit. It was a very young palm but survived and now is double the size it was then. It opened a new frond in April, and is pushing another one this month, you can see the spear coming along. I just stepped outside to take this picture. Also that Blechnum Gibbum had a one foot trunk when the freeze hit. The mother plant died, but this one sprouted from the roots and is really taking off.

Great pics and a nicely done "Northern Tropical" yard... ...if I lived up north, my whole yard would have to be a g'house and then I'd hibernate for the winter...Z

Just a quick update on the builders I'd originally mentioned. (After consideration, we've recently decided to request quotes on a larger pool than we'd originally looked at.) Presidential: I submitted a dimensioned drawing on Tuesday asking for an updated quote & haven't heard back yet. I think I can deduce the extra cost based on some of the line items from the original quote, but would certainly like to know for sure. Dolphin: Good quote, weird experience. Has anyone else worked with these guys before? Curious if your experience was anything like mine, or if this was an anomole? They came last night (an hour late, due to being hung up at a previous appointment, but whatever... figured I'd forgive it & see how the actual meeting went.) Even though I had already very carefully measured the yard and access, he spent the 1st 10-15 minutes re-measuring everything. I guess I can understand that; some people probably aren't as obsessively careful as I was. While he was doing that He gave us some ziploc bags full of pictures to look at (though we'd seen just about everything we could possiblly hope to see by now online), and we waited for him to finish. He then proceeded to take the next 2 hours to meticulously draw the exact same pool dimensions I'd already given him onto a larger piece of paper. (I gave him an actual CAD drawing I did with full dimensions, placed in the yard with required setbacks, summed perimeter ft, surface feet, etc.) He sort of messed up his drawing and we had to go over it and have him re-do some things. He used a bunch of architectual tools & a calculator to come to the exact same dimensions I'd already given him, and finally quoted me a pretty decent price. Of course, I was able to ask him a bunch of questions along the way, but it was still a pretty weird experience, and he wasn't a good multi-tasker, so it really stretched out the time he was here. (I already had my questions before he got to the house, so I could have easily asked them via phone or email, so I didn't see any real value-add to having him at the house.) I sort of get the "old-school" approach, but honestly, the only real thing that scares me off a bit from using these guys was the lack of technology involved in their pitch. Maybe I am not the norm here. Anyway, when it was all said and done, he gave me a price, but left without giving me a quote sheet or 2D/3D renderings of the pool. The latter was less of an issues since I'd already done all that myself, but I literally had to snap a cell-phone picture of the quote that he penciled in on his drawing before he rolled it up and took it with him. So right now I feel a little conflicted by these guys. I do believe that, at the end of the day, they build a good pool with a lot of the add-ons you want packaged in, for a fair price. But would have been nice to see this company had stepped into the 90s (let alone the 2000s or 2010s!) California Pools: Still haven't heard back from these guys. Maybe Cliff is trolling boards here at GardenWeb and decided that my calling him a turd didn't warrant a response from them! LOL... anyway, i sent a follow-up email to him today. If I don't get a quote by end of day, they're out of the running. I might call one or two of the smaller guys to see what they have to offer, and we'll make our decision within a week or so. That's all for now! Dan