From my experience with Southmoon it doesn't require near as many chill hours as stated. I've had great fruit set at 250 chill hours last year. If I had to start all over I would grow 5 low chill varieties. Emerald for shear volume of good fruit and it's very low chill, almost evergreen in my location. Sweetcrisp because the fruit is hands down the best overall. Snowchaser for it's out standing flavor and very early crop. Springhigh for a very early crop and high quality fruit. Jewel for volume and great flavor. I guess I would throw in Sunshine Blue as well. The only knock I can see on that variety is it's a pain to prune cause it can over produce fruit buds in a bad way and it's very twiggy. That being said, if pruned right it is a top notch flavored berry IMO but you don't get a bunch of fruit and it's usually small. As far as rooting cuttings, all of the above varieties except Sunshine Blue are patented so it's illegal to do. If you do, don't tell anyone about it!;) One way that I can think of to creat a humid micro climate for them would be a large kids pool with several inches of water. Place bricks or something in it to keep the bottoms of the pots out of the water and place them in the pool on the brickes. Sounds kinda getto but it works. The water evaporating will provide enough humidity in the leaf canopy to keep them happy along with shade for the brutal sun in your area.

Squid- I was thinking about adding a second LED light too, but I decided to take a chance and hope it would be sufficient. I have to say I'm very satisfified with the one because it is very bright at the deep end and perfect at the shallow end. If you see the picture above, the very top of the tanning shelf isn't illuminated but i'm totally fine with that. It all depends on personal preference I guess. I hope this helps with your decision. If the pool would have been longer then I probably would have added a second. just-a-pb- At first I wanted a soldier course but I really like the look without it and in pics posted on this site. The "odie" pool was done that way too. Can't wait to get the landscape done, but It'll be ahwile before the funds to get "restored" lol

Tendrac, thank you so much for your thoughtful reply. Much appreciated! I have two architects on my list to contact this week. Hoping for a much better experience. I do want to clarify the part about copyrighting. I do believe the man's intention was for us to purchase a set of plans from somewhere like Southern Living and then he would charge us for modifications. When he first began discussing this, I wanted to run out of his office. Why do I need an architect if this is what I plan to do? Why not work with the original architect who designed the plan to make the modifications? I made myself sit still and try to finish out the meeting politely. I probably also need to clarify a little bit more what a new old home means to us. While I would love to build a replica of a historical home, or even better, purchase a historical home, I know that our budget is not completely in line with those options. I do hope to build a home that keeps some of the traditional concepts of the homes built early in southwest Mississippi and adjacent Louisiana. I think what we are looking for would be much like the dogtrot style and/or raised cottage style common in the area, but with a twist. One of our main goals is to build a house that takes into consideration the climate and topography of our site. I spent a lot of time in my great-grandmother's home when I was a child. She never had central air or even a window unit, but her house stayed cool due to the siting and the design. I don't want a home without central air now but I would like to capture some of those same benefits. I loved her big front porch and spent many hours in the swing as a child. Where we would differ from a house like hers is that she had her formal front rooms and then daily life happened in the back of the house. My husband and I don't really need or want those formal rooms, so that's been the difficulty in finding what we need in a stock plan in a home with a more traditional exterior. As examples, John Tee's Louisiana Garden Cottage is a style that we love, but the floor plan does not match our needs/wants. Allison Ramsey's Holiday House is more of the type of floor plan that we like. Both designs are about the size that we would like, 2500-3000 square feet, but both are missing some important priorities. Where we live now, there are exceptional architects who could design something grand and beautiful. I'm just not sure how willing one of them would be to take on our much smaller, less ambitious, project. Again, thanks everyone for the great comments and tips. This thread has really been helpful for us! I definitely feel more prepared to sit down with another architect.

"Amazing thst no one understands the issue here." I'm not sure why you would come to that conclusion. You've gotten responses from at least 2 professional landscape designers who understand the situation completely. "You don't go to your dentist to get new glasses." Precisely why you do not want an interior designer who has no (or minimal) familiarity with outdoor hardscaping material choices or proper application and installation methods. They are not at all the same as what might be used on the inside. The exterior designer is the architect - if it pertains to the structure itself - or the landscape designer - if it pertains to landscape hardscaping or softscaping. Aesthetics is a matter of choosing the professional whose taste most closely aligns with yours. It is a highly subjective issue in which there is no defined right or wrong.