Annual poppies: Corn poppies, Breadseed poppies and California poppies, Natal. You might know corn poppies as Shirley poppies, and Breadseed poppies as Opium poppies. California poppies are perennials, and can be cut back in late May to bloom another year. I pull mine up and leave any stray little plants that haven't bloomed. I still sprinkle seeds of all poppies in November for a new start. Oh, almost forgot about Iceland poppies. They can be grown as winter annuals the way we use snaps and violas. They're kind of a sometimes thing for me, but I keep trying. They make a good substitute for tulips, if you can coax them into March and April bloom. Nell Here is a link that might be useful: Nell's Poppy Tales

and most importantly of all (for palm growers at least) is zones do not include average daily temperatures. For example, the average daily temperature in my town in southern California in winter is probably in the 50s, while a town in Florida in the same zone (eg. Orlando) has daily averages about 20 degrees higher. Even though it may actually have some colder lows. So you can grow coconuts in Orlando but not here despite both being a zone 9b. Zones do not include humidity, either, another determining factor in what will or won't grow for you (which is why Juabaes do great in my yard, but not in my friend's yard in Orlando). There just is no way to create a meaningful zone system that would accurately help predict what plants will grow where.

We also faced the same dilemna and live in SE Louisiana. We struggled with this same question last year when we were having a complete re-do of our HVAC. Previously,we had 2 systems....one up and one down. Since we were re-doing all our ducting and the way our house is set up....it would have been very easy to go to one top of the line zoned system. We came very close to doing that very thing. Then...we kept going back to our 20 year experience of living with two systems. During the day..........the upstairs (bedrooms which are seldom used anymore....) is set at 83 degrees. Downstairs, where our master br is 77 during the day/74 at night. Our living area is kept quite quite comfortable. We have very good, middle of the road, 13 seer units, and our electric bill that just arrived yesterday (blinging hot last month) was $101. We are an all electric home except for gas hot water. Our house is always comfortable and NOT humid inside. Several years ago, my husband had surgery and the day we came home...our 15 year old outside unit for the downstairs died. The upstairs unit was able to keep the house cool enough such that no one really sufferred until the new unit was obtained. Had we one unit....we would have been up the creek. We do not have straight AC but rather heat pumps now with electric strip back up. THAT was a huge improvement going from straight AC!!!!!!!! Our electric bill in the winter was reduced by at least 40% for any given month and I didn't turn the thermostat down to where it was uncomfortable like we had to when we had just strip heating. I think two good middle of the road units are better than on really fancy unit. We do have variable speed blowers and humidistat type thermostats. We are on the north shore. We were lucky to find a contractor that really did a top notch installation. Good luck.

Sounds like you have an air pocket at the elbow, as you suspected. Do you hear gurgling when the heat is on? Depending on your specific system, you may or may not have bleeder valves at the baseboards themselves. You may have to bleed from the boiler with a hose. I've also posted a link for testing zone valves. You could have a stuck zone valve, or a stuck thermostat. 24V is applied to the zone valve to open it. When the thermostat is not calling for heat at that zone, you should not have 24V, and therefore, the valve should close. You can try to move the lever up and down to free the valve. If the motor is bad, you can replace just the operator, or motor itself. If the valve is the problem, you may have to drain the system. You'll probably be able to get some better help at HeatingHelp.com by posting on their main wall. There are many more hydronic heating professionals there than here, and they are always more than happy to help people out. Here's a link to the manual for what looks like your zone valve: http://s3.pexsupply.com/manuals/1258483338402/19569_PROD_FILE.pdf Nick Here is a link that might be useful: Testing Zone Valves