1: What types of citrus trees are you growing and their size now? Lemon eureka lisbon meyer babies not grafted. Everything else grafted Lemon meyer Tahitian lime Australian finger lime Australian gem Makrut lime all 5 years old Lemonade Calamondin Mandarin emporer, clementine West indian lime all about 2 years old Arnold blood orange a year old Australian round lime Yuzu not sure brand new tree have it about 6 months. But already over a metre and a half and has fruited already 2: How do you grow them? In the ground or in containers? In a greenhouse, indoors, out with or without supplemental lighting? If container grown what type of soil mix are you using? All in containers. Outside. Bring the younger in in the winter keep them in my back room which has big windows 3: What type of fertilizer do you use and why? Have you tired other types and found one that has proven to be more effective? Composted chook manure. Seasol. Potash. Trace minerals. A bit of epsom salts if needed 4: What about pest control? What type do you use and why? Try and let nature control it. Remove stuff with my hands and try plant things around the garden to attract beneficials. If things get really bad i will enlist the help of a homemade white oil spray. But thats just when I'm desperate as I worry about the beneficials. 5: Where did you buy your citrus trees? Please also supply the link if it was mail order and which state, please. Have you had any negative experiences in buying trees? Most of them are presents. But have bought some of the older ones from bunnings and from the sundays farmers markets. I've got a wishlist for some of the more unusual ones which I can only find online, but want to make sure my current ones make it through the summer first. 6: What were some of challenges you faced growing your citrus trees? How did you, if you did, correct the problem? Leaf miner. Scale. Ants. Getting enough water and protecting from sunburn in the hot summer. Getting feeding right and shaping properly. Besides the pest control. I put a shade cloth up when its going to be too hot. 7: Why was citrus a choice for you to grow? Was it the look of the tree or did you just like that type of fruit? I love citrus. Beautiful fragrant flowers. Zest. Fruit. Leaves (makrut) and pretty looking plant. 8: What other types of fruit trees do you grow and why? Fig. Tamarillo. A few native australian berry trees. Acerola. Fejoia. Peach. Apple. And a baby banana tree...we will see how we go with that. 9: Other then this forum what other venues or clubs have you enlisted for support? This forum. No clubs. I was a member of a community garden but then I moved. 10: Were there any books you found especially helpful in growing citrus? No not yet. 11: Out of all your citrus trees which one do you love the most and why? That's a hard question. My tahitian lime is one of my oldest most prolific and i love limes. A lot of the others are a bit young yet. 12: What do you do with your harvest? Eat it, cook with it, and share it? Eat it. Cook with it and share it. I have a few friends that come for some of the makrut leaves. I cannot wait until some of my trees are abundantly producing so I can share with my friends and neighbours 13: Does your family share your hobby of growing citrus trees? Ummmm not so much

Small town life sounds good to me. As does living in the country. We had a few acres when I had horses and other animals back in the 60s and 70's. Phoenix is soooo big, too much traffic, and I hate driving even if it didn't cause my leg to go on the warpath. I was born in a small town, in Ala. I don't really going places alone either, and won't go out at night except to family gatherings at one of my kids. I'm waiting the arrival of my toile plates I just bought. Tho heaven knows what I can find to do with them, but will try just because of all the support I've gotten here. Any table settings I do will be just for ONE, maybe two if you're lucky. LOL. I'm going to be a one-trick pony, sorry about that. I just can't do full tables for many reasons. I've been 'planning' my Christmas decor. Really planning this year. Thought it might take some of the load off me being so over-whelmed with it when I go to unpacking a zillion things in the middle of the floor while telling two cats NOT to help me. A zillion times! One sleepless night I started plotting different places to put things this year. I want my newly begun collection of Nutcrackers (started last year) pretty much together. But I think the purple one should go with the Santa. And I have two golf Santas and two golf Nutcrackers that should stay together. Last year they were with my two other special Nutcrackers, a policeman and a fireman. These have a lot of meaning! I'm going to put my Village in the antique china cabinet in my entry hall this time I think, instead of Painted Pony Cabinet in familyroom. Tho I still have to move over a 100 statues from BOTH. I was thinking of putting Xmas horses and reindeer in the pony cabinet. I have quite a few of both now. Anyway, its fun to mentally decorate. It also doesn't wear me out or hurt my body. LOL. I think I'll start my Village next week in fact. First I have to make room for all those dog statues to safely go on closet shelves for the next two months! Ugh. hugs, Karen

Well, this thread has turned into a wealth of gardening information! Some of the plants I have read about, others are completely new, which is wonderful. Gyr_falcon, your yard and plants are gorgeous. I wish I had your gardening passion, it shows in your pics. I lived in SoCal most of my life and have never seen the plant species you have (that I can remember anyways), it's really lovely. MsRose. I too am jealous of your Echinacea, they are one of my favorite flowers. I see now that they can grow in our zone too! Beautiful roses as well. I was thinking about trying the double knockout, so I'm a bit disappionted to read kswl's and javiwa's posts about them dying. Robo!!! You just simply rock! You're so generous with your pictures, advice and information, thank you so much. I'm feeling pretty lukki that we're in the same zones too, your gardens are so pretty! I find it very hard to believe that you are a beginner and/or a lazy gardener! Our previous owner was a landscaper by trade and ignored his own gardens, add that we are not gardeners and had a ton of inside work to do too and here we are. During her first visit, my sister told me we have bleeding heart in the back which are in shade, then my dh found some berry bushes in one bed which are very thorny, we had hostas and day lilies in the front but I'm not sure if they will grow back this year. Some daffodils and tulips are trying to come up, but a guy who cleaned our leaves for us dropped them all in the beds and the are buried. We have so much clean up to do it is overwhelming. We did transplant some forsythia bushes on the side of the house last year and they are starting to bloom. So far on my list I have red twig dogwood with a base of lemon grass set along the border of the property to help with some privacy from the road, hydrangea under the front window, a mix of blooming perennials in front of the deck and I really really want a Japanese Maple which is my favorite of trees. There is just so much to choose from. I will look into the azaleas as well. hee hee. I drive for work and have had my eyes on the yards. Lots of flowers starting to bloom, it really is so pretty.

To be honest Sunny, while I could recommend further on specifics, for better or worse, it sounds like we're down to the "where do I put the towel rack?" stage, you already know pretty much what you want and any more "big idea" discussion would be pointless. And that's entirely ok. More often than not when I do these "pen to paper" exercises I do them for the lurkers rather than the OP anyway. And for the lurkers, at least one of my three points above has been addressed, that of house area. For a house with basically 4 bedrooms and the support spaces here, 2100SF is plenty. That number might represent a challenge to achieve but that's what a good residential designer does. The other two points, that of maximizing views and circulation remain largely untouched. Two bedrooms are looking elsewhere (one onto what I think will be a largely unused covered patio) and parts of the circulation paths look like the white squares in a crossword puzzle. In concluding, let me get back to Sunny....I guess in a larger sense what I was trying to illustrate is your house has no soul. Sure it has all the pieces (place for piano CHECK......screened porch.....CHECK.......pantry.....CHECK......place for hutch.....CHECK.......walk in closet.....CHECK....etc.) but add all those pieces up and the sum does not make for an inspiring whole. And inspiring wholes do not cost a dime more to build than uninspiring wholes. Designing a skyscraper, where there's a lobby floor with 50 identical floors above is in many ways an easier task than coming up with a well designed small house. Let me reference some threads you might find helpful before you spend a healthy six figures of your hard earned money in an endeavor with no "do-overs" (and again, I'm keeping lurkers in mind here). Read up on what makes good design. First here's a great list of book suggestions: http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3281434/book-suggestions?n=10 Second, here's a bunch of great suggestions from others here on what makes good design: http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3285825/what-makes-a-house-have-good-design?n=39 (And Sunny, if you thought some of my comments above might have been a tough read, note #31 in my post here). And third, get someone local of talent to sit down with you for a highly interactive "brainstorming session" on the design of your house. And this doesn't have to be expensive or time consuming. Just look at the idea I drew above.......which took an hour. I do these all the time and call them "design charrettes". And don't think I have a horse in your race as I only do these locally, face to face, and I'm plenty busy with the locals anyway (some I even reference here!). In lieu of doing another big retype here's a coupla threads that explain those: Not my first post here but the photo heavy one further down. In the charrette photo that's me pen in hand with the builder flanked by the owners (and from the photo you can see I'm a piano player too). http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3178541/question-for-architectrunnerguy-or-others?n=24 And a colleague of mine wrote the process up in his blog http://www.lifeofanarchitect.com/design-in-a-day/ And again Sunny, the best of luck with your build.