Seasun, a south window is great, but 5 feet away is too far. You are not giving your phal enough light and it will decline into death if you leave it where it is. Orchids take some time to die, so you'll think you're doing fine, doing ok, maybe not growing like it should. Oh NO!!! What happened to my beautiful orchid???? Here's how where to put the phal figures: phals need about 1000 footcandles of light to grow and bloom. *Outside* at high noon = app 10,000 FC. You are never getting anything near that indoors because of the ceiling and roof of the house cutting off that directly overhead sun. All you are getting is the slanting sun, of much less than 10,000FC. Cut in half by the window glass and screen. Cut in half again *for every foot away from the window*. At 5 feet from your south window you are giving it *100FC or less* by my fairly generous estimate of what your south window actually lets in. In St Louis, I can keep phals *in* a south window with no damage, just far enough from the pane for a shade to slide down. Start moving it closer to the window. The first day move it to about 2 feet from the window. Leave it there a day or two, feeling the leaves where the sun falls on them (if it does). If they are hot, it's too much light, move at least 6" further away. If barely warm or cool, move closer. Repeat above, moving it 6" closer to the window every couple of days til you are at the place where nearer the window = leaves are hot (or it's in the window). There's been a lot of discussion with newbies about how much light to give phals here lately. Mostly newbies wanting to argue for keeping it on an inside wall in a bookcase where it looks great, more experienced growers arguing for more light, LOTS more. Your phal will love you if you do a search for these threads. Use the search function and put in something lilike "phal + light". If you leave it where it is and it dies in 6 months, put it down to needing to learn things the hard way. Actually that's how most of us learned this lesson.

I live near Tupelo MS which is similar climate to Atlanta. My understanding is that peaches get alot of diseases and must be on a regular spray program. I garden organically so do not do peaches. Figs are easy, I have Brown Turkey but I hear Celeste is better. I have several neighbors with apple and pear trees but I don't know the variety. The neighbor across the street gets plenty apples. I have Freedom and Liberty apples in espalier form but they are too young to bear yet. I researched these for my zone, disease resistance, and cross pollination. I think Gala is a good apple variety. If I had room I would try some cherry or plum. Don't forget blueberries they are not trees but beautiful shrubs and fairly easy. Your best bet is likely to contact your local university extension service, perhaps Georgia State or UGA. They will typically have stuff to mail you or a great database online.

I use Simple Green as a all-purpose cleaner. It's non-toxic, although I couldn't find it on the linked site. You can use it full strength for some jobs and dilute it down for things like washing windows. It is fantastic at cutting grease and oil--use it full strength on oil spots on garage floors. Barkeeper's Friend is similar to Bon Ami, but a tiny bit more likely to scratch things. Bon Ami is gentler. For things that just have to be clean (as opposed to sanitized), microfiber cloths do a great job with just water. If you need to polish up chrome or stainless, they are fantastic. Use two to wash windows. One wet to clean, one dry to dry the window and keep it streak-free. No chemicals at all.

Hi Rob, Not much to add ... and hope that you're back at least part way out of your blue funk. Brother, retired farmer who lives 1600 miles way, has one son, only child, in a city 100 miles from here, a couple of small grand-daughters from son's second marriage, and comes to visit them a couple of times a year. He'd called to say he was to be in the neighbourhood, and we got together on Friday, I called son and he and his partner were there for lunch, as was brother and wife ... and a couple of favourite cousins were, as well. Brother spent a few years when he was very young with the family of our Mom's brother and their two children when she was ill, so he considers one as almost a sister: the son, a local farmer, died several years ago. The other cousin lives locally and I see her at church fairly often - she, who had voice training, has sung in the choir for 75 years. The brother and I went to deal with some complications over inheritance of cemetery plots that Dad owned ... and it looks as though resolution is to be easier than we figured. Then we sat and had a chat ... and he's rather worried about future viability of his son's marriage. We don't see one another often, but we've been close, over the years. Our brother died over forty years ago, when his kids were in their teens, and our ready-made sister that came with our stepmom lives near brother in Saskatchewan. It's a red letter day when we get together. ole joyful