A foot candle is one lumen of light hitting per square foot or 10.76 lux. I seem to recall that you posted this question in another section and said you were getting four hours of direct light and another 8 hours of ambient light per day. That should be mo-re than enough, unless you get a bunch of cloudy days in a row. Mike

First of all, unless you're at really high altitude (I mean like, 10,000 feet or above), forget about UV. It's irrelevant. I don't think that too much light is an issue either. As I said, it's mostly about temperature. If it's hot, and the plant is in full sunlight, the plant will feel hotter! Again, remember, the AIR temperature in full sun is lower than the SURFACE temperature for anything dark, like a leaf, or asphalt. My plants get 100+F air temperature in full sun for four weeks here in Central Texas. How do I know when to shade them? Well, if they droop even when the soil is moist, they're too hot. They're not pumping water fast enough to keep up with the evaporation by the heat. I can't do much about the air temperature, but I can keep the sun off of them if I need to. I'd like them to have as much sunlight as possible (as Seysonn points out), but not if it means they're going to get overheated. I guess that means that the way the plants look is more important than what your light meter says. Actually, I should say that the only time I've ever shaded any plants was when I was planting a fall crop of beans in August. Those seedlings were delicate enough, with shallow enough roots, that they needed some protection. I think I also once put shade over some squash, but they were on their last legs anyway. Cukes might get stressed by the heat. Tomatoes, probably not, unless they are leggy, with very long stems. Peppers LOVE heat and sun. Now, I don't live in a dry desert climate, but I can presume that evaporation rates will be higher there, meaning that plants could get stressed with somewhat lower air temperature. But again, just look at the plants. They'll tell you if they're unhappy. Hope that helps.

Well I guess I'm contributing to the hijack - sorry scraplolly! I used to live in a house with a driveway just like dtownjbrown and I hated it. So I was kind of interested in contributing to his story. You could think about mixing some evergreens in there. Microbiota, dwarf chamaecyapris, pencil holly, rug or pencil junipers, etc. But they are kind of dull in a row... Another way to go about this is to plant annuals for a few years to see what responds to the lighting. I would think you could grow coleus, petunias, maybe even an indeterminate tomato - cherry tomatoes, the italian plum tomatoes. I grow them in less than optimal sun in containers. My favorite is San Marzano - good for salsa. This year I'm growing calladiums in full sun planters so go try some new things - you never know what will work. Sometimes the repeated annual amendment helps also. Your soil looks good in the picture but who knows how old it is? You say it drains quickly- its possible that somewhere along the way somebody re-waterproofed and improved the drainage down deeper. When we had our back wall re-waterproofed they dug down 11 ft and then filled the space with limestone to about 2 ft from the top - then backfilled my topsoil on top of that. The space right up against my house is very dry as a result. A good resource for you would be the Botanical Gardens in the area - just do a search. Another good resource is the Plant Search function at MOBOT - Missouri Botanical Gardens. For ex. I just searched on Full sun to part shade, Dry to medium, 6-12 inches spread, Zone 3 for scraplolly and got a list of plants back - http://www.mobot.org/gardeninghelp/plantfinder/Results.asp I don't know if you want anything to hang out over the line of the bed into your driveway but I'd think about that as you select plants.(daylilies)Whacking the flower heads every time you drive in has a tendency to look kind of ugly. The above was in case you don't like my idea: Given the narrow space and lighting my personal recommendation would be to plant a unifying ground cover like pachysandra which is evergreen, make space intermittently to have a few clumps of daffodils/tulips and alliums in spring and then have a nice white lattice structure just covered in green ivy to cover the wall. I would have parts of the lattice go up 6-8 ft and parts down at the level your siding begins. - sort of like the silhouette of a town. I would use horizontal and vertical crossbars rather than the cheaper looking diamond shaped criss cross pattern. You need to fasten it so that it is out from the siding about 1.5-2 inches for long term home care. You don't want ivy putting tendrils into your siding or cement. Where you live you might succeed with Boston Ivy which is very colorful in the fall. An alternate might be grapes or hydrangea petiolaris which I doubt would be watered at all after established. I could see having round blue ceramic planters filled with colorful coleus and impatiens set right down into the pachysandra with the wall of green ivy behind them. To give more space you could have cutouts in the latticework to center the planter in the space. You could have a small water fountain on the wall among the vines - or frame it with the lattice. Another planter idea is pruned boxwood with annuals/trailing vines around them for summer - and you can do something with them for the holidays. You should be able to have Korean, Vardar Valley, Green Mountain, etc live in a container if you keep pruned. The Blue Girl holly also does well in low light/bright sun but you'd really have to stay on the pruning to keep a holly in bounds. I would also try some unobtrusive stick in the ground solar lights to create a soft glow after dark along the drive or you can wire lighting in. I get container combination ideas every yr from the White Flower Farms catalog - gorgeous stuff altho this yr they were too in love with bronze and orange combos. Shrubs that I have kept pruned for yrs to 12 to 18" wide are taxus, boxwood and believe it or not - euonymous - burning bush. I have a 3 ft deep bed along my house and its underplanted with pachysandra and the burning bush are at least 20 yrs old - you just have to keep up with the pruning to keep them to the size you want.

As long as the soil is adequately moist (though the soil does not need to be constantly wet)...full sun, even 100+ F degree sun, is just fine for the vegetative growth stage of peppers. They generally enjoy protection (shade, shade cloth, etc) when they're flowering and fruiting when temperatures are regularly around mid-90s+ F, though. Temperatures in the mid-90s F make some flowers abort without forming a fruit and intense sun on formed fruit can burn the fruit tissue. The leaves handle it all quite well as long as they have adequate moisture (but be sure not to keep the soil saturated with water...it's a bit of a delicate balance in arid areas). While they're still in the non-flowering/non-fruiting stage they do rather well with full sun, even at 100+F. As far as the moisture balance goes for hot times of the year...if you notice leaves drooping during the worst of the day on established plants beyond the very small seedling stage, there's no need to panic...that's natural. If you notice them not perking up after the sun goes down and they're still drooping...they probably need more water than what you're giving them.