Thanks to people sharing seeds through bakemom on the Winter Sowing Forum, I've seen some of the cute little envelopes handmade from magazine cut-outs. They're great for little seeds. But the sticky labels to seal them are much smaller than I've been able to find. Rather than cut the standard mailing labels down, is there an inexpensive source of those little sticky labels? Not a lot of experience yet, but the ones I got that were sealed with "March of Dime" type stickers didn't stay sealed as well. One person made little paper envelopes with a straight flap and sealed them with a swatch of the sticky strip of mailing label paper left on the sheet after you use up the labels. Those looked nice and secure.

Hey neighbor. Phormium (Flax) is too wide for that very space unless you go with dwarf types. Most of them will get 4-5' wide and you'll be doging them every time you walk by. You could do good height with 'Tiny Tower' Italian Cypress, they'll stay less than 2' wide but get 20' tall (eventually--they're slow growing). Not the species--they get too big for your space. There's a 'Tiny Tower' in a pot in front of Peets at the Trader Joe's shopping center at Irvine & Newport. You could do a vine but I would stay away from the Cape Honeysuckle. It can get to be a rampant mess. Have a look (also by Trader Joe's) at the Cup of Gold vine Solandra maxima. They have them growing as upright shrubs. A tough plant with nearly year-round huge yellow flowers. The kangaroo paws are stunning, beautiful plants, but they can be tough to grow and seem short-lived around here. They get an infection called "black ink" and are touchy. The water company office in Tustin at Main and Prospect had a bunch of them...but sadly they've mostly died out. They were quite stunning for a couple of years. Another idea for height would be some wrought-iron pieces. You have narrow spot there, so think narrow, vines on structures, but watch the density and tidyness of the vines lest they harbor rats. They are attracted to rampant dense vines as nesting and hiding places in our area. What about some succulents, such as Aeoniums, alternated with the 'Tiny Tower' cypress, with maybe one smaller vine on a trellis? Sorry for limited ideas, but the space is narrow. Narrow spaces between house and concrete are difficult. Sometimes just concrete right up to the house is a better idea in the long run. You have green on the other side of the walkway--do you really need that narrow planter area right next to the house?

ODB or plywood have been the standard exterior wall sheathing materials for more years than you or I have been on this earth! They are the simplest and best way to resist seismic and wind shear forces in framed walls (when constructed with proper connections). In Oklahoma, tornados can create a lot of uplift forces and, thus, you will want a foundation, wall and roof design and connection that are resistant to thise forces. That means continuous rigid sheathing such as OSB or plywood. important. If it was my house I would use: 1) 2X6 studs with dense pack cellouse insulation; 2) house wrap; 3) minimum of 1" XPS rigid insulation with taped joints (or 2-1" insulation panels with overlapping joints; 4) brick and masonry ties; 5) drainage space; 6) brick or stone masonry finish materials. Proper sealing at all plate lines, corners and openings is essential. Your footing will need to have a brick ledge formed in it to receive and carry the brick/stone masonry. There's lot of good details on how to do this, such as: http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/profiles/etw-charlotte-profile?topic=doctypes/enclosures-that-work/etw-building-profiles This is an article from "Enclosures That Work" from buildingscience.com which is a good resource to bookmark and study. Good luck with your project.

Yes, the heat pump is generally sized for cooling. I have heard of some installations where they size them for heating, but am not personally familiar with this. I think this is generally more needed in a climate colder than yours, but it would be worth asking your installer about. What's the installation cost difference between the electric backup and gas backup systems? I'd think it would be at least a couple thousand dollars. So right there, to me anyway, is a big factor in the decision. With the numbers you're looking at, I can't see where gas backup would save you anything, but even if it saved you a couple hundred bucks a year, that's a long payback time. One other thing, too, is controlling those gas backup systems for optimum performance can be tricky. A friend put one in his house (which had an existing propane furnace) and it was factory set to change over I believe at 35 degrees. He lowered it, I forget to what, but he had to play with it quite a bit to get it to a point where it seemed optimum. With the all-electric, the strips will come on to help the heat pump when needed, but you still get the contribution of far more efficient heat from the heat pump, whereas he loses that on gas backup. In his situation, it was good, because he already had the propane furnace and did the heat pump when he needed to replace the a/c anyhow, but I think for you all-electric would make more sense.