Swamp cooling information below. The solar cover is hard to say, At least a factor of 2 to 3. Depends on how much sun you get during the day and what kind of heat storage you have. Ex. -water barrels, rock, gravel or brick floor. Double or triple panels or single layer glass as I have. If you read my page you will see I use very little heat and I am in a colder zone. I have bananas and elephant ears and lots of different gingers (which needs to go dormant to bloom). I had kept my temps between 45-47 but it got to 35 a few times with no harm. I have lowered my temps to below 45. Zone 9 should be no problem to heat to keep above freezing. Things still grow and my callas love the cool temps and bloom in Jan. MY blue sky vine also blooms in the winter. Cooling is your biggest concern. A smaller greenhouse is harder to cool than a larger one. But easier to heat. I can only keep my summer temp 10 degrees above outside temps with what I have now. So a few days it hit close to 110* in between misting times. Our humidity stays between 80-90 most days. That makes it harder to cool. I am 10 miles from Lake Lanier, our main watershed. If you have heard the news this is the worst drought ever for Georgia. So I cut back on watering as much as possible. Here is a link that might be useful: Swamp cooler

This is fabulous. Three of the wonderful things I have learned since I was fortunate enough to discover gardening: 1. Nothing grows on the mountaintop. We must have valleys to grow. 2. Momma birds have to kick baby birds out of the nest, or they will never fly. Momma squirrels are smart to destroy the nest so no one can come back to it. 3. You have to have darkness to grow. Never pray away your bad times. Learn from them. The people across the street do everything I do to my yard. They mow, water, feed correctly. Their yard is full of weeds and weak...mine is beautiful. The difference? They shine a 100 watt bulb in their street light every nite, all nite. I have 60 watts and it goes off at 2am every morning. It has to have darkness to grow.

I usually try to avoid commenting on these situations but I couldn't bite my lip here. I guess I have a few other thoughts on it. First a disclaimer: I have problem with the way divorce has become so commonplace and people have chosen to re-write their vows (remember them?) to be "till irreconcilable differences do we part". To me, divorce is acceptable in a very small percentage of cases so perhaps it would taint my view. I'm bothered when someone questions how a person can live with themself for not walking out, yet no problem living with themself as a liar. And now that I've offended 2/3 of the married populace, I'll move on. That said, IMO you gave wise advice to think it over and she surely should consider all points, and not just the financial. Is she using the term "revenge"? If so, it says something. No, revenge won't make you feel better and if you're leaving for revenge, you'll likely only hurt yourself. Just as he's damned by his non-denial (but with this limited info, he didn't admit to it and we don't even know what the allegations are), she is equally damned by acquiescing to and thereby condoning his alleged discretions in the past. Now she wants to go back in time and change her mind on her decisions made way back when. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all go back and change our minds? I surely would have invested in Microsoft, bought an oil company, not dated ____ and well, needn't say more. That was then, this is now. The allegations are important. And by the sound of things, they're probably relatively minor and to blow it out of proportion isn't sage advice. Let's face facts, if he raped the co-worker, there'd be a termination and criminal charges. Likewise if he grabbed her inappropriately (as in assault/battery), yet no mention of charges so likely there are none. Actually, he KEPT his job and that says a LOT. What does that say? In today's society, with the fear of legal liability, political repercutions and otherwise, few companies would stick their neck out to keep an employee that would be a liability. If it was something truly serious the boss wouldn't have just said "don't do it again". If the boss said not to do it again, it sounds like it was possibly something lik a verbal issue, possibly something that could have been taken wrong or was tasteless or whatever. The term "sexual misconduct" is an explosive term as evidenced here. But it's also a blanket term. Emailing someone a cartoon of a vision-impaired caterpillar propositioning a french fry can be construed as "sexual misconduct" and would probably result in someone being similarly disciplined as what happened here. So to everyone charging forth with the torches, pitchforks and nooses, I'd urge some calmness before selecting the tree. The consensus is that the lack of sex is because he's been fooling around. Interesting. She had nothing to do with it? It takes two to tango and again, we know NOTHING and what we do know is clearly one-sided. Perhaps there's more to this story. Perhaps a LOT more. I'm not going to go on, I'm sure I've ruffled enough feathers. But I will say she needs a good friend and you are that. But she also needs to confide in someone trusted to give her counseling while knowing as much as possible (perhaps both sides), and very possibly it takes a professional view. Clearly so with the legal issues if she should decide to proceed. Without knowing what the situation ACTUALLY IS, there's no way to give sound advice other than what she's received. I think the best advice is to be there for her but be careful on advising without knowing all the facts. My best to her and her husband and I hope I have caring friends like you who I can talk to if I have a troubled situation.

I would say, definitely...especially what I have seen after this winter! Our February was at least 10 F. colder than average. That's not a big difference, it's extraordinary! So, highs that should have been into the 40's were stuck in the low 20's and lows bottomed out into the single digits on more than one occasion. It seemed like a ZONE 5 February to me (December and January were milder). Well, I just uncovered an outdoor Trachy. It was covered with a plastic garbage can (with damage holes on top so not well insulated). I provided no heating source but the location is on the south side of the house. I was very surprised to find it looking so well! Have had worse damage with greater protection AND lights in the past. I think this encourages me to attempt a protection method I have read about with palms in Europe. Where in cooler regions, they merely tie together the fronds and wrap them with burlap. Sure they are helped by...keeping out the moisture, protecting from winter sun scold, and providing a somewhat warmer temperature. If you do use lights, be careful, it is very easy to damage them as even little bulbs do get hot. P.S., You might also consider Sabal minor or Louisiana...as long as your summers are as hot as he//.