Update: I've gotten all my materials to build the hoop house frame and shell. As mentioned, I have a 16' x 16' garden area which is fully enclosed within a 4' paddock fence. My thought is to design a greenhouse that has a permanent base with a detachable cap/roof. In terms of the base, I'm going to use eight 4' pieces of 1" PVC (4 on each side) which will be attached to the fence using galvanize 1" pipe straps and also screwed to the fence rails/posts using 1 1/2" wood screws. Attached to each base will be a 1" PVC union assembly which should allow me to easily unscrew the roof at each base point once the temp warms up. These were the most expensive materials (about $5 each) but in the end it should make installing/removing the roof/cap pretty painless each year. The roof will consist of 1" PVC "joists" that will be attached to the base and in the middle using 45 degree PVC adapters. The base will be also built up an additional 2.5' at the union point to increase the head space (see attached jpg for simple design illustration). All the PVC materials and strapping cost about $100 (purchased at local Home Depot). The shell will be the 6mm greenhouse film linked earlier in this thread. My questions with this design are: 1. Should some sort of support ridge be installed in the middle to support the center of the arch? I wasn't sure if it would be needed with a 16' x 16' sized hoop house. 2. What type of clips should be used to connect the film to the PVC framing? I've read that one can make their own using cut thin walled PVC material that will essentially snap over the preexisting framing, but wasn't sure if that was the best route. 3. I haven't yet figured out how to make the front/back in a fashion that is easy to installed and remove. When I put up the front, I'll be temporarily removing my existing gate for a larger door. Any guidance would be appreciated. I'm super excited for this project and actually started my seedlings last weekend for a mid-March transplant within the hoop house. This should extend my growing season (at least on the front end) by a full two months (zone 6b). smithmal This post was edited by smithmal on Tue, Feb 5, 13 at 16:16

I haven’t visited these forums in some time and actually rediscovered this thread doing a google search on some rare plants (go figure). Since we have a lot of trees and not a lot of resources and time to protect them, most of my losses are due to deer/rodent herbivory. Instead of dwelling on all of the plants I haven’t been able to keep alive, I’ll mention the highlights and surprises here. I went go in depth on too many so ask if you want more details and I’ll try to keep an eye on this thread and respond back when I can. I have been in Arizona since May and I’m basing the updates from this past growing season on my mother’s observations. -Strongest growing maple is Acer lobelii by far; arrived as a stick broken in half during shipping en route from Colvos Creek Nursery in Washington state and has grown at least 3 feet a year. It towers over all of the other sticks in my maple collection at about 15 feet. -Acer davidii grosseri hersii (what a taxonomic mess!) is the strongest growing snakebark and a new addition since the original post I believe. I don’t give it any “help” nutrition-wise and it has grown 2 feet each year; excellent striped bark turns crimson with the onset of cold weather and the leaves are a mix of red, orange, and purple in the autumn. From Forestfarm and while they are awesome, I have not yet keyed this plant to confirm its identity; either way, doing awesome for a snakebark in a clay-dominated alkaline soil in an exposed area. -Acer rufinerve gets no fertilization either and has some years where it sits back and grows little, and other where it takes off. Apparently this year it grew over 2’, so it now stands about 8’. Bark is excellent, although it doesn’t change to crimson like some of the other snakebarks. Can occasionally develop minor signs of nutrient deficiency but not a big deal. Leaves are amazing both texturally (coarse) and by color in the autumn, a mix of red, orange and violet. -Acer henryi looks like a Boxelder and grows like one in upstate NY. After a rough time establishing and a nasty bout of sunscald, it now grows about 2’ a year and has excellent red and violet autumn colors, with violet usually dominating. -Acer longipes is notable because I was able to get one through a winter (low -13F) with the only damage due to herbivory. Supposedly sprouted up big time this past summer. Not many experts seem to place much faith in its hardiness and it may have been below the snowline at the time of the low temp. Time will tell. -Acer mandshuricum, Acer triflorum, and Acer maximowiczianum all suffer through chlorosis. A. triflorum does the worst, A. maximowiczianum the best. A hybrid from Forestfarm between A. pseudoplatanus and A. griseum has done very well, with violet-backed leaves and red fall color. Hybrid vigor and no cold or soil issues. -Acer oliverianum is starting to pick up steam and has yet to be damaged by temps as low as -16F. Might be benefiting from the protection of a nearby hedge. Fall color is usually reddish-orange; it is deeply shaded. -Calycanthus raulstonii ‘Hartlage Wine’ is a huge success. Massive flowering in the second year and completely hardy. Grows very fast and gets leggy unless trimmed. Flowers are gorgeous and large, with virtually no scent. Numerous visitors that have seen the plants have subsequently scoured google for a dealer. The intense color has even drawn some hummingbirds. Seedless. Highly recommend. -Magnolia grandiflora ‘Bracken’s Brown Beauty’ gets defoliated by about January when the truly consistent cold temperatures begin. This about the time that the soil freezes for good as well, limiting the plant’s ability to care for the leaves no doubt. At times, it looks like a fancy houseplant with shiny green leaves growing amongst the snow. No cold-dieback although it is not yet established and grows only about 6 inches a year max so far (haven’t got an update for this past season yet). It is late to leaf out in the spring. -Have a Stewartia malacodendron that apparently did very well in a shaded and very rich sand lens in a protected area that gets partial shade. It is big enough to be above the (likely) snow line and I will be very, VERY interested in seeing if it overwinters. Perhaps more updates later (and as I receive them!)

We have tons of snakes out here. So far this spring we have seen several rat snakes and some black racers, but we also have rattlesnakes, coral snakes (we now know, lol), water moccasins and I am certain many many other harmless species. The coral snake I had to remove from my greenhouse was, as you said, very shy. It had gotten in and gotten "stuck"...it was all the way at the back wall and couldn;t seem to find the way out again. It would go from one end of the greenhouse, following the wall, to the other, turn around, and repeat. I watched it do that for several minutes and realized that I didn't want to be working in there around it while it was being a poor lost soul so I had to scoop it up and take it out. They sure are pretty. I am so glad that that boy is getting better. I would hate to think of it being my child.

Steaming means that when you hit their burning skin/hair with water to put out the fire, the water turns to steam and burns them more. It is the reason you won't see a firefighter spraying water on a burning animal to put out the fire, and it is tough to see. That's why I turn away--I cannot bear to watch it. The first time I saw animals on fire (armadilloes and possums), I begged the firefighters to spray water on them to put them out, and they said "Can't do it. It will kill them." I think they probably died anyway though. There is nothing near me. Are you kidding? Even a trip into Marietta takes 30 minutes round trip and that's just if you're popping into a gas station convenience store for a cold drink. Other than whatever is in Marietta (which in terms of shopping is not much), we have to drive 30 miles north or south to reach any decent shopping destination,and by decent I mean something like Wal-Mart. That sounds like a long way, but when we first moved here we had to drive 50-60 miles to get to a Lowe's or Home Depot. We also had NO cell service within 2 or 3 miles of our house, and no internet service. We had to buy a DirectPC satellite dish to have the internet. Our then-15-year-old son thought we had moved to a foreign planet. Eventually cell phone service moved closer to us. At one point we had cell service if standing down in the road 300' from the house, then eventually we had cell service in the living room of the house but no farther, and then finally anywhere in the house, but not north or west of the house. Now we have cell service everywhere on our property. See how we're moving on up to the big time? Eventually we had dial-up internet but it was painfully slow after having had DirctPC. However, it only cost maybe 1/3rd as much. Now we have (hallelujah!) wireless internet. You still lose all cell service when you get pretty far out west in our county, although a new cell tower was supposed to solve that. I haven't been out west since it went up, but someone who has been out that way said it was not the solution they said it would be. Once you get far west in our county, even the fire/police radio reception can be spotty, and I don't like that. Don't get me wrong. When we moved here we knew it was very rural and very remote, but the lack of cell service and internet service was a little surprising. Because we're in a lowlying area, Channel 12 was the only tv channel, period, that we could pick up and that was spotty and with a big antenna. So, we got DirecTV and still have it. Sometimes you have to give up some modern conveniences in order to live way out in the sticks. I am grateful every day for internet shopping and UPS. It is so much easier to order stuff and have it delivered than to drive 90 or 100 miles one way looking for it. The nearest Baskin-Robbins I can think of, by the way, is in Denton, TX, and I am not even sure if it is still there. There's a Braum's in both Ardmore and Gainesville but both are sort of off the beaten path and we rarely go there. During the dry months we leave Love County as little as possible because there's nothing worse than being 30 miles from home when the fire pager goes off. It makes Tim crazy and it is hard to get him to patiently wait while I finish the grocery shopping, for example, before we head back home. The fire either will still be burning when he gets there, or it won't, is my attitude. A couple of years ago we were in Lewisville shopping for a new treadmill and started getting phone calls and text messages urging us to hurry home because there was a big wildfire. We did. By the time we reached Denton, TX, we could see the smoke plume from the fire in western Love County, but we kept thinking it must be from a closer fire in Cooke or Montague County. We probably were already between Sanger and Gainesville before we realized that the smoke plume we'd been seeing since we were east of Denton was from our fire. That was a fire that took several days and all the departments in our county to extinguish it fully. In the summer or winter fire season, any time we leave home, we have a 'to do' list and hurry, hurry, hurry to do it and get back home. To me, it is a thrill to get to spend 4 hours in Denton without rushing back, but that only happens a couple of times a year. We'll eat lunch at a real restaurant, walk around the mall, maybe browse the bookstore. It is like a vacation, albeit a brief one. I am not complaining, either. One day of dealing with traffic and crowds in the D-FW metroplex and I'm ready to stay home for the next month. I love living in the country for many reasons, but shopping convenience is not one of them. Dawn