I hear that in the future they will try to find ways to diminish the heat island effect but I have no idea why! You would definitely have a lot of angry palm growers lol. Look at the good the heat island effect did to the palms in Florida. Millions of palms were saved thanks to that. One of the greatest things about living in and around a city is the slightly milder planting weather and when you include an ocean right next to it you got a great climate for experimenting with marginal plants! I really love the look of agaves. The first ones I ever saw was in europe and after a ton of searching I finally found out the name of the plant. When I found out some can survive a zone 7 I was really happy! Now that I know what they are I see then all over in milder climates. I saw one in the caribbean in flower with hummingbirds around it getting its nectar. A very nice scene for sure and something that you might see with your agaves one day (and thats in Iowa!). Good luck!

Hi everyone! Sorry for the delayed response--been very busy with work. I do agree with needing to raise the tree up. I have a large box that should work and will see if I can procure some faux snow. I think I also have some old bricks lying around. HMMMMMM. I actually like red and white lights, as well as blue and white--but my neighbor has blue and white, so I think I'll stick with red and white for a candy cane look. I agree that the lights on the japanese maples aren't my favorite, and that they detract from my christmas tree indoors. I guess I could put them on the bushes to the left of the porch? (There are some large overgrown evergreen bushes to the left, though I'm not sure they show up well in the pictures...) I AM having fun--love decorating my new home for the holidays! Such a fun time! I still have work to do indoors--we're having a party in a week and I have a lot to do before then.

Thanks, everyone. Joyce, I really like the cabinets and all of the appliances so far. The cabinets are Merillat Masterpiece and have full extension soft close drawers. I am happy with their look and quality. Not all of the appliances are GE. We have GE Monogram fridge, ovens, cooktop and microwave (Advantium). Love them all, and the Advantium is awesome for cooking when pressed for time. The dishwasher is Bosch Evolution (800 I think?), super quiet, cleans really well. The hood is Broan Elite. We went with a 1200 cfm external blower, and I think that was an excellent decision. Grilled steaks on the rangetop grill the other day and it worked great. Also like the Jenn-Air beverage fridge we have in the butlers pantry. It's 3 zones, which is very convenient, only two issues with it: it's a little bit loud and open bottles of wine with a stopper are too tall to store standing up.

thanks columbusguy! I hope the landscape comes out as "old florida" style for the period. I don't have a green thumb at all, and we had 3 landscape designers offer us plans. I really wanted to keep a lot of the old stuff, but they all said it was past the season of healthy, and needed to come out. :( I don't think it will feel "old" looking for a year or 2, but here in FL everything grows super fast... so should look okay in a couple years.