Hey Julie, I was through Lewiston just yesterday on my way home from New York. We are in a similar growing zone, although yours may be a little warmer, depending on the wind. Ruth Ann, in Burlington Ontario, is a wonderful expert in our area in the growing and wintering of brugmansia. Hopefully, she will add her comments as well. You mention that you have 8 brugs (ecuador white) and that it is now getting into the 40's here at night. When it gets cold here and near the freezing/frost point, I always take mine indoors or at least cover them for the night. Tonight, it is supposed to be close to freezing here, and clear, so I have taken most of mine inside, and covered those that I want to keep that I have not yet brought inside. These I put into my garage, and have started to trim off the leaves to force dormancy. I will be washing them several times to get rid of bugs, and spraying them as well. I keep most of mine in a cold cellar with no light, but it does not freeze there. I usually also take a few cuttings, ....just in case. These I keep in my basement under florescent lamps. I do have to watch these for spider mites, and spray often to keep the mites in check. You mention that your garage can get quite cold. If it freezes, and your brugs are in there, they will not survive, so you must be aware of what you need to do. They should be brought indoors. Try to get some 4 foot florescent lamps from a recycle shop or some other economical source ( friends?) It is not too difficult to wire them up to a timer for the winter. I usually cut the foliage off, even if I take the plant indoors. They will drop the foliage at any rate because the intensity of the light is different from outside. Your question about the coolers is an interesting one. Personally, I think that the closed coolers may set up a humidity problem and mold would set in. In my mind, that would surely be detrimental to the health of the plant. You mentinon that your basement is heated. How hot? Is there a cool spot? I found a space in the corner of mine that is good for my brugs. You asked if you should try bring a few of those 5 down to the basement anyway. I would. If you make a few cuttings, and get them going, and all survive, you will have extra to make plant trades in the spring. That is what I do anyway with my brugs and also my dahlias. Before I bring my plants indoors, I always give them a good blast with the hose, then spray with an insecticide of some sort, and then blast again with the hose. All this AFTER I have removed most of the leaves. Remember to wash your hands after trimming the plant. Better safe than sorry. An interesting question about the roots in the pots. If you have some pots that are just a little bigger, feel free to repot. However, if the plant goes dormant, then repotting should not be necessary until the spring. If they are only 1 gallon pots though, I am concerned that they might not be large enough. So many factors are dependent here. The temperature of the place where you are going to store them, the amount of light you are going to give them. IF you are going to take them indoors and try to keep them alive and growing in the north-west light, then I would definitely repot them. Of course space is a factor as well. If you have any variegated brugs, I have found that they do not take well to going dormant. I always keep mine going throughout the winter. They are in larger pots though. When I put them outside in the spring for their summer residencey, I usually just sink the pot into the ground. In the fall, I clip off the roots that have gone outside the pot, and then trim the leaves back, take to the cold cellar (non freezing), water once every 3-4 weeks sparingly, and then start them up again in early May. Best of luck.

Thanks for all your replies. I was originally thinking of the 10' beds would be subdivided into 3, 3' beds, but you've all made me think that's not wise. That would rule out using the tractor and tiller mid season. Given that my tractor is 7' wide and tiller is 5' wide, I think I'm stuck with making the width of bed + walkway equal a total of 7' at least. Jay has given me some ideas for how the bed itself can be varied a bit, but ultimately the "pitch" of my beds (from one front edge to another) should stay at 7 or 7.5'. I'm definitely going to look into getting a bed shaper. I see that a close by equipment dealer has one for sale for $950. Maybe I can find an old cultivator and just get the bed shaping discs made for it? Chris

Programs like the one you are trying to remove are fake antivirus that mess up your computer after installation. This typically happens from visiting a sketchy site: a fake message pops-up saying that your computer is infected and it can be cleaned up if you just install Product X. If you do that, you're giving permission for malware to be installed on your computer. I suspect that this may have happened when your son was using UTorrent. You should have a talk with him and anyone else that uses your computer to make sure there's no more clicking on stuff like this in the future, or visiting of dubious sites.

Thanks Ryan. It is indeed a 3 ton AC unit. I assume you think the XV95 is a good unit? They all looked at the ductwork to some extent, but no one said it needed work. It is a maze that has been amassed over the life of a 90+ year old house, that has an addition in the back (which, as you might suspect, is the back upper room with poor air flow in the summer). I am concerned that there silence means it will quote "work" with the new equipment, but I am missing an opportunity to fix a different issue than just broken the furnace/AC. The last gentleman made it clear that this system would not fix the problem, but did not propose a fix. I am sensitive to price, so I guess he did not quote it, even as an add on, for fear of me perceiving him as pricier. The unit is in the basement, and the ceiling is not finished so you can see it down there, where it goes from there is beyond my vision and thus, without any knowledgebase, I have no idea what it may be doing after that. The blower in the XV95 is variable speed, I think. Should I attempt to have him proffer some solution that may abate the problem to differentiate the bid? Is this overreaching or in-bounds?