Pam - along the side of the house there is a 5-8 foot wide flat walkway of old bark, and next to it, covering the slope are some junipers that have been well-trimmed through the years. Since they are doing their job of erosion control, and I really don't have to look at or maintain them short of an annual trim, I will leave the ones along the side of the house (and throw in a couple arborvitae or similar to screen off the dead wood on the end) but as soon as we get into the actual yard, the bushy scary eating the yard ones will come out. Thanks for your input karinl. I am becoming more keen on including conifers in the landscape. That has been something that I'm getting more and more used to. When I first moved it, I was so against anything non-broadleaf evergreen it was ridiculous. We were going to go with an alaskan weeping cedar (and still may) but at Flower World, we ran into something called a dwarf sequoia, which was SO interesting, and we will almost certainly be using it in the landscape. I've been unable to find anything online about them. It had a similar growth pattern in that it kind of looked Dr. Seuss-y, the branches hung almost straight down, but it was gorgeous. We have 5 HUGE fir trees, one on each corner of our yard, and they ALL belong to neighbors. The people across the street from us are hoping to open up their view a bit and have spoken about wanting to go in on taking down the one uphill of us, but the people that just bought that house are like the Seattle suburb wannabes of Jersey Shore so I do not expect that they will have any interest in spending any money on landscaping. I caught them thinning out a photinia that provided privacy screening between our back yards with a sawzall (.25" thick branches). The people downhill from us are renters and based on the state of various "wear items" around their house, like the fence, I have a feeling the landlord is uninterested in investing any money in the property that they don't have to. Cliffs: It's unlikely either of those huge fir trees are going anywhere. Thanks for the kind words on the back yard. I've spend the last 2.5 years trying to whip it into shape. We have put a huge deck between the 2 decks on either side, the raised veggie beds, defined garden beds around the decks and elsewhere have gone in, I've taken out about 1/2 of the lawn, we put in a fire pit and gravel "patio" in front of the other deck to address the ongoing lawn moss and crappiness issues, and torn out about 1000 sq feet of vinca minor and 3 overgrown rhododendrons. It has been quite a project, and I feel that I've gotten far enough with it that I'm ready to start tackling the front so it doesn't look like meth addicts live here. I'm not particularly tied to nandinas, and after spending $50 today on ONE dwarf variety for vignette #1, I have been seriously rethinking my position. I have a couple more plants to move from the back yard to the front tomorrow morning, but I will post photos tomorrow once I get everything "completed." It looks FANTASTIC.

SalmanBah- In a climate like yours, the main issue is killing the plants from too much heat. I live in a climate where the summer, outdoor temperatures only get to about 25C, but, even with venting, the greenhouse can easily get to 45C...which is a threat to many plants. In your country, you could get to much higher temperatures if the greenhouse was not well-designed. I don't have firsthand knowledge of greenhouses in Bahrain, but any greenhouse you would build there should have: 1) automatic roof vent openers, 2) one or more large volume fans operating on a thermostat, 3) a misting system on an automatic timer; and 4) shade cloth on the roof. What size greenhouse are you talking about, and what would you want to grow in it?

Should your boiler be completely drained? No, not really. Not unless there's a MAJOR service issue that has to be resolved. Draining water from the main blowdown valve, usually no more than a few gallons, is sufficient to remove the lion's share of the sediment. The best way to blowdown your boiler is to wait until the system has been off for several hours but is still warm. This allows the sediment to settle somewhat but it also means that it's loosened up any scale on the bottom of the tubes. Obviously, this is probably something that will happen during the spring or fall when your heating requirements aren't that great. Depending on the size of your boiler, I'd say remove no more than 1/4 to 1/3rd of the boiler's total capacity, and do it SLOWLY to prevent possible thermal shock if the sections are still hot. Removing that much water will normally take out the lion's share of the crud. The water does NOT have to be perfectly clear and clean. You just don't want it looking like the bottom of a mud puddle after a bunch of SUVs have driven through it. If you have heavily mineralized water, and have a water softener, use that water. It's got sodium in it, but the scale producing minerals aren't there. I've also heard of people using distilled water for their boilers. No (or very little) dissolved oxygen, and absolutely no minerals. If your system has been really neglected over the years, you might want to flush the boiler, descale it, and then fill it using one of the commercial conditioning products available for steam boilers. This is, however, a drastic measure and really should only be considered if you have severe scaling that is causing operability issues. The jumping of the water in the sight glass COULD be caused by a number of things, including scaling or simply super saturated minerals in the water. Just a pain in the ass to get that water into the boiler unless you devise some sort of filling port/valve.

I ask this because it happened to me.....is there something close to the Tstat that generates heat during the day, causing the Tstat to read as satisfied even though the rooms temperature feels lower during the day than at night? Our Tstat was on a wall in the living room, and the TV was close to the wall. We have the TV on frequently during the day. House always felt one temp during the day, and then warmer at night. Finally we realized that the TV was putting out heat and that was raising the temperature close enough to the Tstat to have it read as satisfied at the set temp, even though the actual room temp was lower. So the boiler was not very active during the day. Then at night with the TV off, it was very active. Something like that may be happening to you. Additionally, your older home probably has more infiltration at the basement (I am guessing it is stone and does not have insulation and a vapor barrier...) and has more cold air seeping in there. This may be mixing with the air in your first floor where the Tstat is located, and would be a colder air mix at night when outdoor temps are lower. Combine that with the hot air in your home rising during the night, and that may explain some of the temperature stratification you experience. Have you actually checked the temperature at the radiators themselves in the day and middle night to see if they are vary by different amounts day/night? Do you have a one-temp type of Tstat, or a programmable one? Either way, try dialing it back a bit when you go to bed and see what happens. (but you will be cold at 6am!)