deervssteve - I note your comment about the deer not touching anything over a certain height. That has also been my experience, which is why most of the roses in my garden are either large heritage teas (most of mine get at least 8 feet tall & wide), or climbers. The climbers can be anywhere from 8 to 20 feet high, and I plant bulbs & things at the base of them. (So far in my experience, deer do NOT eat daffodils & narcissus.). So, how about planting some climbers in your garden? You are in a nice warm zone, so the WInters should not be a problem. I plant mine in cages just like yours, and when they get big enough to survive a little low down pruning, I take the cages off. If you prefer modern roses to old ones, there are still a lot of climbers. All of the roses in the attached picture are HTs or modern climbers, growing well above what I think of as "deer height". Just a suggestion - Jackie

I was born in '44, and I never had "fast food" until I dated my husband in the late 60's. My family considered McDonald's food to be trash, though none of us had ever tasted it. While in my late teens I drove to Hartford, CT for my bassoon lesson, and I used to pass a Friendly's and read the sign that said Ice Cream on one line and Sandwiches on the line below. I wondered if they were a sandwich shop or if they sold only ice cream sandwiches. I didn't find out until one was built in Stratford and I finally decided to eat there. Awful Awfuls were incredibly large and think milkshakes at Friendly's. They were awful good and awful big. Eventually, they had to change the name to the Fribble. I think it was due to a another store using the name first. Somehow, when the name changed, Fribbles just weren't as good as Awful Awfuls. Friendly's made the best cheesburgers in the world back then. They were made as a square burger added to a grilled cheese sandwich and were always cut into three pieces. Does anyone recall a canned meat called Veal Loaf? The can was ths same as a Spam (UGH, no matter how poor I may ever be, I will NEVER again eat Spam) can but the meat tasted gteat. The can was opened with a roll-up key. We had a sandwich grill and made the sandwiches on Wonder Bread. Making sandwiches for four people from that one can made for pretty thin sandwiches. I wonder if German hard rolls were what we called water rolls. I never found them outside CT and haven't had one in 40 years. Going back to my parents' distain of fast food, and when we were still very poor, our Sunday night supper was always eggs and potatoes. My father always cooked the potatoes, usually as slices fried in a ton of butter on a two burner long griddle pan. When he was in a good mood he would take the time to make real french fries. A can of Crisco was melted in a deep pot and we peeled REAL potatoes for him to deep fry. Each batch was placed into a clean paper bag and shaken to remove extra grease. Then, they were shaken with salt and we had the best fries I have ever tasted. I recall making real fries once when my kids were little. They shared them with their friends and they sure disappeared fast! Oh, yeah, how about going to the local drug store and getting a good sized Hershy bar with almonds for a nickel???? Another treat was parking near the local airport to watch the planes land and take off. There was a hot dog stand nearby and sometime we got foot long hot dogs. No Belgian Waffle has ever tasted as good ones I had first at the World Fair in New York in the 60's. My family was terribly poor and a special treat was a Sunday ride and a stop at the God Humor truck. I think they cost 15 cents back then. A quick lunch, considered healthful, was a Horlick's Choclate Malted milk with a raw egg beaten into the whole milk!!! God they were good!

It taught me to question further things that I was wondering about. The appliance forum convinced me to work a 30 inch range into the design, even though a 24 inch stove had been planned initially. The Kitchen forum allowed me to brush off the criticism of the tile guy that brushed off subway tiles as "only being used in bathrooms today." But also, for better or worse, it made me a bit defensive that I have a white kitchen. Not in real life, because I love it and it fits my house and it fits my space. But I do bristle when I read posts casting shade on white kitchens. It makes me want to say, "Just walk in my 7" x 10" shoes, and tell me that this kitchen is sterile and passe and you would do something differently." I would probably add an expletive here if it was real life, but I know it's not. It also has given me appliance insecurity, even though I like my appliances and they were chosen with care and with full knowledge of the other options. On the other hand, in some ways, the shade cast on white kitchens and the appliance envy has made me more confident of my choices. I am happy with a white kitchen, and frankly, in my space, anything else would be so out of character for my house and me that it would make me unhappy. Recently, there was a galley kitchen posted here with a bright yellow green backsplash. I loved, loved, loved it. It fit. It wouldn't fit here. Same is true for appliances. I couldn't afford the appliances that others have talked about and debated. GW has let me come to grips with that. On the other, other hand, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" I don't know whether I would have cared about many things if I hadn't been convinced by GW that I should. But I heard the tree fall, and I'm happy for it. If I had to do it all over again, I'd still be here. Bristling over the slams of white kitchens, having appliance envy, wanting to express my opinion that timeless is ephemeral, and whether something is true to the period is less important than whether something is true to your vision.

I dont have Lychees but I have the Lychee relative called Longan (aka Dragon Eye) and it is self pollinating. It fruits every year but fruits exceptionally heavy every other year. Lychees are also self pollinating with both male & female flowering on the same tree so you dont have to have two. I have most of my tropical fruit in big pots inside the greenhouse frame area. I just put the plastic on in winter and take it down March 1st. That way I dont have to move large pots. They often need to get trimmed back to 10ft in winter, to fit under the gh roof lol. Here is my Longan hanging on the tree. Starfruit Starfruit tree little pink flowers...the bees love them. (ignore yellow leaves lol)