Shade cloth won't prevent plants from drying out if they're left untended. I would find someone to water your trees while you are away. I'd also question the wisdom of leaving tropical trees outside in Zone 5 in early April untended. It may be 55 degrees at night now, but April weather is very changeable. All it would take would be a 10 degree decline in nighttime temps and some of your tropicals would get shocked, another 10 and they'd be dead...

Shade cloth provides shade, Aluminet provides shade AND heat reflection. In your situation I would go 100% Aluminet. I found it very easy to work with and would highly recommend it, I will probably never go back to shade cloth again. The cheapest place I found is: http://www.shadeclothstore.com/deptsaluminetshadecloth.html I ordered it without grommets and bought grommets from: http://www.shadeclothstore.com/products/clipitsplasticgrommets__aluminetshadecloth.html These grommets worked fine and are dirt cheap. One of the better foggers is the minifogger by Hydrofogger: http://www.hydrofogger.com/inc/sdetail/152 You are probably going to need a swamp cooler. I experimented with mine in different positions and found that it worked best for me if it was sitting on the ground (1" off cement) and blew the cool, moist air under the benches. 2 fans create a circular air movement under the benches, there is an additional fan at bench level. Air moves up through the plants and leaves the greenhouse through a generous 2' x 1' opening at the highest place of the green house. With these measure I keep the temp below 80 even on the hottest days in Southern California. This describes the situation in the 'Cold Greenhouse'. My solution for temperature control for the 'Hot Greenhouse' is to make it into a lath house during the summer month. I don't need a greenhouse in the summer, only in the winter, so I constructed a convertible structure which will be a heated green house in the winter and an open lath house in the summer. The top 2' of 3 of the walls are hinged and can open up. 12' x 14' of space has 36' of 2' panels open during the hot months. That, along with fans keep the temperature at the ambient backyard level. As it gets colder in the fall I will begin to close these panels and eventually the heating system will kick in. I would like to tell you that with these open walls, no swamp cooler is necessary but cannot say so as I have another factor in play. The 'Hot' and the 'Cold' greenhouses share a dividing wall and the air from the cool side is exhausted into the hot side thus adding cooling and humidity to that side. I believe that with the open walls I probably would not have neede a swamper but am not 100% sure. Good luck, you'll have a lot of fun. Nick

I cloth diapered my son who is now 5 1/2, here are my thoughts. A 484 prefold (with the dark blue stitching) in a wrap will swallow a newborn, they are just too big. Did you get some of the smaller infant size prefolds too? They have dark green stitching and are the same thing, just a smaller size. You can use them when the baby gets bigger too as a doubler for nighttime. Just fold one up into thirds and put it inside the bigger prefold. Bulky, yes, but very absorbent for overnight. For the tiny newborn phase I've heard that buying a couple 24-packs of cheapie cotton washcloths and using them inside a wrap cover is great. And you can use the washcloths as diaper wipes later or just throw them away if they are too stained. I've seen them at Walmart for I think $3 a pack. We loved Prorap brand velcro wraps. Didn't much care for Bummi or Bumkin wraps but we loved the Bumkin all-in-ones. Dappi pull on covers are very good, cheap and reliable but the velcro ones run very small and IMO aren't near as reliavble as Proraps. I also have to second the recommendation for an Aristocrat wool cover. Ds used to wake up soaked from his chest to his knees in anything but a Chinese prefold (with the aforementioned infant prefold inside arrangement) and an Ari. They require special care but are well worth it if you have a heavy wetter. Fuzzibunz didn't fit my son right. A friend of mine had the same issues. And another friend tried them but her baby ended up have an allergic reaction to the fleece, something to watch out for. IMO cloth diapers, no matter what covers you end up using, are going to be more comfortable for the baby in July than disposables. Washing diapers is easy. What I did: -Cold rinse cycle with nothing added -Warm wash/cold rinse cycle with detergent -Cold rinse cycle with nothing added Occasionally I would use vinegar in this rinse, followed by another rinse with plain water. Hope this helped, drop me an email if you have any questions. I'm all too happy to talk about my CD experience. Hopefully we will have another baby next year and this one will also be cloth diapered (I already have a stash put away LOL!) Karen

Shee I like to use Roc lon to line window treatments - It provides insulation, black out and protects the window treatment from harsh sun links may help what you are looking for http://www.walmart.com/ip/Roc-Lon-Blackout-Energy-Efficient-Curtain-Panel-Liner-White/2432275 Or you can buy yardage & make your own liners which would be easy to do & less expensive http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog/category.jsp;jsessionid=14056AD0250AE3EC35B7540B177F8B11.a1p2?_DARGS=/joann/catalog/supercatleftnav.jsp.187_A&_DAV=attrValue&_dynSessConf=434453980022824848&narrowSelection=true&CATID=cat2699&attrName=Brand&superCatNarrowSelection=true&attrValue=Roc-Lon&supercatId=cat2699 Bamboo shades on overstock http://www.overstock.com/search?keywords=73%22+bamboo+shade&SearchType=Header Country curtains has the bamboo shade lined http://www.countrycurtains.com/product/400+roman+and+roll+up+shades/405+insulating+shades/040248345+bamboo+insulated+roman+shade.do?sortby=ourPicks&filterby=