Thanks for the responses! Here's a rough sketch of the yard: The Jacaranda branches mostly extend out over the left-hand side in front of the kitchen patio (this patio is actually covered by our neighbor's patio because we're the bottom unit condo - the column is one of the supporting structures for that). The blue agapanthus idea is an interesting one. But those seem to be very similar to the the birds of paradise that I've been struggling so hard to get rid of in the yard. My main goal is to clear out as much space as possible to give way for more 'usable' space: setting up a patio table to sit outside, bigger space to setup the bbq and grill, etc. Of course, the Jacaranda bloom will make things messy, but I'd want to be able to more easily clean it up. If it will make a nice amendment to the soil though, that's something else to consider (in terms of gathering up the bloom and mixing it in). I've noticed that it's not uncommon for seeds to get mixed into the dirt, resulting in Jacaranda tree sprouts! I actually let one grow to about 3ft before I decided it probably wasn't a good idea to let it continue, and uprooted it; especially seeing how it was right next to the outside wall of the kitchen!

Just last night I finished writing a piece about why you can't amend a water-retentive medium with coarse material. I wrote it specifically as a rejoinder to the very often repeated advice that adding 1 part of perlite to one or 2 parts of water-retentive medium will somehow yield a 'good' medium. I plan on posting it as a thread because it's important for growers to understand that a half measure won't necessarily improve your lot by half. Punked by Perlite? In any forum that is even marginally related to container growing, you'll find the oft repeated advice that you can make a silk purse from a sow's ear by adding together equal measures of an overly water-retentive potting media and perlite. Many growers erroneously believe that you can start with a medium comprised of fine particulates and miraculously make it better by adding perlite. You can't ..... and I'll explain why. Let our starting point be any soil you're so uncomfortable with you feel it needs 'amending' to increase aeration and drainage. Store shelves from coast to coast offer up hundreds of examples, and fora are full of threads that offer suggestions re how to fix them. If there's a standardize version of the advice, it would have to be, “Mix 1 or 2 parts of it [and it rarely seems to matter what 'it' is] with 1 part of perlite and all will be well; but …… will it? Let's look closer. The answer is – the suggested mixture will not perform any where near as well as you might intuit. Just how is perlite supposed increase aeration when it has no internal porosity? By what miracle does a nonporous particle added to a water-retentive container medium, or a bowl of oatmeal for that matter, increase air porosity? Let's say that you have a gallon of Miracle-Gro potting media - the stuff with the moisture control feature, and to it you add a gallon of perlite. Adding perlite is pretty much the same as adding BBs or marbles. If you screened the fines out of the perlite, you end up with 2 gallons of medium, twice the volume; however the double volume ONLY comes with the amount of aeration that was in the gallon of medium that so needed fixing. We sure didn't get any aeration from the perlite. There is no way to deny that with twice the volume of medium and no more than the volume of air already contained in the original gallon you've actually reduced the per volume total air porosity by 50%; AND, the more perlite you add, the worse it gets. Total porosity continues to diminish as you add perlite until you reach a threshold level of coarse material that occurs at the point where there is no longer enough of the original fine material in the newly created medium to fill all the spaces between the large particles of perlite. That will not occur in most practical applications until the fraction of large perlite particles is in the 75-90% range. If your medium consists of 75-90% perlite, it would be misleading to suggest that you're growing in medium X amended with perlite, when you're growing in perlite amended with medium X. We don't take coffee with our sugar or cream, we take sugar or cream with our coffee. In essence, when you begin with a poor medium based on fine particulates, and start adding coarse material like pine bark, perlite, pumice ....... it gets much worse (from the plant's POV) before it starts to get better. If you add an insufficient volume of coarse material – it stays worse. Perlite's primary benefit lies in the fact that it occupies space that might otherwise be filled with saturated medium. Simply put, media comprised of fine particles with perlite added will hold less water on a per volume basis than the same media without perlite, but the aeration level in the fraction of the medium available for root colonization will be roughly the same with or without perlite. Visualize adding a pint of perlite to a pint of sand, then ask yourself whether or not the perlite helped by adding aeration. The answer is a resounding NO. Did it help with drainage? Only to the degree it decreased the amount of water the medium can hold on a per volume basis, but this is something of a hollow victory. More on that in a subsequent paragraph. If we want to take advantage of what well-aerated media have to offer, we need to understand how to EFFECTIVELY use the materials at our disposal. If you have on hand pine bark in an appropriated size, perlite, and sphagnum peat, you can mix them in such a way that the end result is a highly productive medium for container culture; or, the same ingredients can be combined in ways that render them practically unusable. Growers would be much better served to use water-retentive media like as it is from the bag, in combination with the well-reasoned use of ballast in the bottom of the pot than to make a wreck of their medium by adding an insufficient amount of perlite or other coarse materials. The science applies to total porosity and air porosity at container capacity. When using perlite as an 'amendment' to water retentive media, it would also be better to determine the height of the PWT the soil supports (easy peasy), then mix 4 parts of perlite with 1 part of the medium, and fill the bottom of the pot with that mix to the ht of the PWT. Then top it off with the water-retentive mix - unamended. This would be much more effective than amending the entire volume of medium in the pot with perlite. Remember - perlite's job is to take up space, and the space it occupies cannot be colonized with roots. This is the 'hollow victory' I mentioned in a preceding paragraph. While perlite takes up space that might otherwise be full of saturated soil, and in that reduces the volume of water the soil can hold, it also reduces the volume of soil available for root colonization. Space available to roots to grow is still filled with fine particles, which still hold roughly the same amounts of water they did before the perlite was added. Many things can be used to significant benefit if used judiciously, most of those things can put us at a disadvantage if used capriciously. Understanding the role of perlite, and other ingredients that serve as potential additions to container media are steps toward getting to the point where we're far more likely to be limited by things like climate, light levels, and humidity …… than our own skills. Al

It seems that everyone relates topdressing with overseeding and/or renovating their lawns. Forget that idea for the moment. Topdressing with a good compost is excellent for your lawn AT ANY TIME. It is one of the best things you can do for the health of your lawn. Topdressing with sand or native soil is good for leveling bumps and ruts in the lawn. The above topdressing practices, although good, have nothing to do with seeding or overseeding. Now lets talk renovating and overseeding. Mulching your seeds after planting on bare soil is a good idea to preserve moisture a little and maybe increase seed  soil contact. For mulching, some use clean straw, or compost (my favorite), or top soil, or sprinkle a some peat. This step is optional and controversial. Some like it, some donÂt. If you are overseeding, then topdressing is even less necessary because there is already grass and thatch in the lawn helping to hold moisture. But as I said before topdressing with compost is one of the best things one can do for their lawn. It is "old school" organic lawn care. There is nothing better. Labor intensive, yes, but well worth it. Bill Hill

I'd agree to avoid smaller heaters, too much chance of overheating and they are of cheaper quality (which tend to malfunction). I put my betta rescues in a larger container with a heater. (container in container) Not pretty but works in winter. Others have own tank higher up which stays warmer. Also, many of my tanks have no heater (Betta rescue is near wall with window) so I use a room heater in dead of winter or when heater from building is off. RE: eclispe. I have a 2.5 gallon with betta male. I do not use the lid filter as I have found it too strong for the betta finnage, in such a small space especially. I take it off and use one of those small penn plak filters that stick on with suckers. I use a valve you can get to slow the filtration. (blueish things and very cheap) Cut tubing and stick one inbetween, then you adjust the flow, plus I stick the filter up higher to reduce air bubbles from tossing him around. They often like to hang near this though, and chase the bubbles. I think you can find a 2-3 gallon tank with glass lid and lighting. (they don't like esp bright light as well). Live plants are best mho, help with water quality, and they feed off of them (little things we can't see). I don't use gravel in such small spaces and do very little sweep off bottom once daily. Clean out completely (save part of water and filter with culture) when warranted, about once every other week. (just stuff on glass walls) Smaller sizes need extra care with re to water quality. Or a sponge filter with slower adjusted water flow. I like Anubias plants as they can deal with the low light and are easy to care for, ie no sand, just put on rock or wood piece. I attack a suction thing to wood then attach plant then put plants where I want them. Make sure rocks, wood so on are soft edged, betta fins are one cell thin and rip easily. (that little 7 watt bulb keeps the water pretty warm, although mine are on a higher ledge where warm air rises) Nana would be good for them. He sleeps under and on top of the little curled leaves, plus micro bugs are on them and he nibbles. I cut one of those coconut huts in half (don't have to) and one guy loves to sleep in there. Female in other tank could care less, lol. She sits on top of it though to rest. I was going to grow java moss on them but didn't have time nor does my java do well, except in betta rescue bowl (he can't swim so low bowl with moss tiles for him to scoot on, with small penn plax filter (I love these filters) and heated second containter. You can get a coconut hut and put Anubias, java fern or moss on them. As some were rescues, I have too many for larger tanks for each, hence the 2.5. A five would be a great size. PS. I was thinking of some sort of heating pad myself. Nice to see someone has invented them, so will look at that. Thanks. Good luck, Sherry