Temps to be 35 - 37. And the geraniums in the terra cotta urns in the garden are doing so well. I'll need to bring the urns indoors before the frost, and it's easier just to empty them. I already put the others in the storage barn this past week. No room in the house for the big urns. I did bring a terra cotta flower pot into the pantry with it's orange/white striped geranium tho. It will stay there over winter and probably bloom for many weeks to come or go dormant until Spring.

I've lived in extreme temps on both ends of the spectrum. I commuted in -55 wind chills and record numbers of sequential days when the temps never rose above 0, and then in climates where the temps regularly rose above 110. At some point, you stop noticing the 5-10 degree differences... it's all just miserable. But it's all relative, too. Early in my career I was driving thru Atlanta when it got a dusting of snow. It was a mess! I called my dad to complain and he said, "I'm sure the Atlanta taxpayers are not paying for a bevy of snowplows, dear, so just pull over and wait it out. You don't want to be on the road with people who aren't experienced snow drivers anyway."

Off the top of my head: Sanguinelli Blood, Tarocco, Moro, Budd Blood, Smith Red, Vaniglia Sanguigno, Valentine(Pumello), Red Vaencia, and Cara Cara (lycopene). I mighthave a couple more that I am not remembering and I have multiples of some and a few Moro and Tarocco from seed. I think they all have gotten fruitlets and several have developed mature fruit but they are all still small trees so not a huge amount of fruit yet. I was hoping for a lot of fruit this year as the trees have been doing well even after the greenhouse overheat in April, but something keeps eating or stealing the fruit when they get about 2 inches in diameter. It is quite frustrating. I never had problems other years so it must be something new to my yard. I have chipmunks for the first time this year, but the fruit seem to large for them to take. I had a second Tarocco, but it died suddenly for no reason I could ever figure out. It's twin is still doing fine and they were next to each other in the greenhouse when the one started dying almost overnight. I had a cocktail grapefruit/pumelo die like that also. I am wondering if that is a rootstock compatibility issue when that happens or maybe the graft fails. The Cocktail made 5 ripe fruit last winter and suddenly died overnight. It had fruited at least twice before that and was a strong grower. It was one of my largest trees. Again, I don't know why it died. It did not seem to be prone to scale, spider mites, aphids or other bugs. The rootstock still looks alive, but it has not sprouted at all. I have been waiting all summer. The Tarocco rootstock sprouted some kind of trifoliate and I now have a fairly large tree to graft onto when I get brave enough and find the time to try grafting. Some trees are real scale magnets,but these were not. Cory

Thanks to all of you. You have all given me great ideas…….I possibly could do a sun sail. I could attach to either side of the screen porch and stretch over to a support beam on the deck that holds some lighting. Not sure the cost of such…… Perahaps the dawn light will not be as bad as I thought…….I will admit, because my garden guy Bert seriously injured his hand in June, I did not have the garden help I usually have. And due to my limitations (many of you know about my hip 3 surgeries) no mulching got done and it was truly needed. I like the idea of some containers to help will shading that bed. It would be the easiest solution. Also some taller plants may help. I also have thought about one of those decorative standing screens, but that might make it hard to move around the bed. Kenrah, I am 69 with physical limitations, so splitting and moving the hostas would be a tremendous amount of work and really there is plenty of room in that bed for growth of those hostas. I am glad that you were able to move yours with a little bit of work. My front yard is pretty full and competes with maple tree roots, adding more there would cause more issues. debra