well these are not going to be true bonsai. let me clarify this a bit cause i think my initial explanation may have been confuseing. the plants are goi9ng to be in raised flower beds borderd with cement retaining walls, the on differance being that all the soil and every thing is conatien with in the limits of the pond liner so that all water that gravity pulls down through the beds is returned in to the pond system. to clarify this another step. in a natural pond setting or yas river area..... you have a high water table that is exposed to the surface in a low area, the open body of water( this is not always the case as you may have water that is conatined in a rout in a heavy clay soil and may not pass out into the surrounding ground. what im doing is creating an artifical water table with all the plant beds over that table. plants then have the option of extending their roots down int o the water table if their water requirements are more then what the current water situation is. the only plants i plan to dwarf are the mugo pine and the cypress and that will probaly be done through, pruneing. i do intend to prune the plants into desirable shapes but this is on a much larger scale then a normal bonsai would be.the wisteira wichis curently about 5 years old i believe it was 4 years onld when i bought it in the summer, will be trained up a hollowed out log that is about 6 feet tall,and will provide support for the wisteria wich will be trained to banch out over the top of the log like a tree, and alowed to spread out to about a 12 foot radius. the mugo and the cypress are the only things ill have to keep small, the mugo to maybe 3 or 4 feet depending on how it looks in proportion to the water falls it will be placed between, and i would like to keep the cypress to about no more than 7 feet. the cypress willbe lowed to get its toes wet while keepingits anlkes dry. the pther plants the rose of sharon the mugo and the wisteria i have decided to run on a differnt system. since i have to be able to remove plant material that floats downinto my skimer part of the pond, which until now has been leftto just detiorate, i have decided to put in a settleing tank that this material will fall into and be pumped out useing a trash pump. ok heres the trick. ill use a timer to pump water for about 30 miniuts to an hour once a week. wich is waht we would normaly recomend for watering trees during the growing season that are planted out side in the ground, wich is basical what these plants will be. i might have to reduce the watering time because there is a smaller area for the plant to be growing. when the plants are watered the pump will act like a garbage disposal, sucking up and chewing up any material that has settled in the tank( possibly even some fish who have gotten too curious and decided to swim over the falls, the fish have gone over the falls a couple of times) and way this material will be ejected on to the surface around the maple, wisteria, mugo and rose of sharon wich will accumilate into a nice loam. note: this will oly happen when the pond is awake i.e. in december when the water goes below 50 degrees farenhit the pondis put to sleep meaning the pumps are shut off till around march or april when the water gets back up to 50 or basicaly duriing the growing season. also since the plants are over a water table if they need more water then they are getting with the weakly watering they can grow their roots down to the water and absorb it from the water table wich is a natural thing for them to do. the whole concept of the pond is to keep it low maintance with the exceptin of occasional pruning to control size and shape of some of the plants

I found this thread not only interesting, but it was also the kick in the pants that got me to do something about the repeatedly failing water intake valve/solenoid on my Miele Optima (G2420-SCI). The unit was installed new in 2008-2009. We moved into the house in early 2013, and by August that year we experienced our first failure. I do not know if the valve failed in the interval between 2009-2013. I called the local factory authorized installer, and they came out promptly. As I learned after the 2nd failure, they didn’t replace the entire hose/wire/valve, but simply cracked the case and wired-in a new valve. They charged me price of entire unit. Eighteen months later, same problem. I found some info on retrofitting the Miele valve with a GE valve, but I guess I was too timid to try it then. So, I called Miele and explained the problem. They comp’d me 33% on the new part, and this time they changed out the entire assembly. It worked fine until July ’16 when it developed same problem. This time they comp’d me the entire part and did another replacement. Every time they checked the inlet water temp it was below 130 degrees. The new part installed in August ’16 has barely lasted 8 months! We tried to use the machine over Easter weekend, and it came up with the same humming sounds of no water coming in and then popping off the “F12” fault code. After embarrassingly spending/wasting $1000 on 3 valve replacements, I finally decided to look back into the GE valve, and that’s how I got here. I was a GardenWeb member for years before Houzz, but lost touch, until I found this thread. Good x2. I followed the instructions on the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LaqSO-Oyuw I opted to use the GE WD15X10003 valve as per the video, and not the WD15X93, mentioned earlier in this thread. As far as I could tell online, the two units are functionally comparable. The bracket and molded switch housing of the X93 are somewhat different, necessitated by the fact that the X93 is designed to be tucked into a cramped under-washer position in a GE system. It is also about $10 cheaper than the X10003, but the X10003 was available by Prime on Amazon, so I could fix it right away. I would guess that any of a number of these valves would be fine, since they would sit on the floor of the under-sink cabinet, and not require specific in-machine installation. The water inlet connection on the GE valve is a 3/8” Female iron pipe thread (FIP). My water source connector is a S/S flex hose with a 3/8” female compression fitting. To mate them I needed to pick up a 3/8” male-male brass connector with one end MIP and the other a compression thread. Connecting them was no problem, but getting them leak-free at the MIP-FIP connection was a bit of an issue. One has to hold the valve in one hand while tightening with the other and it’s hard to get a good grip on the valve portion. I used plumber’s tape first, but on the second try I used 1 wrap of plumber’s tape and a thread filler-sealer called “Hercules Block.” It’s a somewhat messy blue paste, but it did the trick. The wire connections were straightforward, just as explained in the video. I test ran it twice yesterday, and it worked normally, just as the OEM valve, and so far, there are no leaks. The time between failure and repair was only 3 days (not the typical Miele 3 weeks), and the out-of-pocket costs for valve, connector, sealer, electrical connectors was $40. (not $450+). The satisfaction of DIY, and un-shackling from the burdensome, confiscatory Miele system?....priceless. My only regret is that I should have done this after the 2nd failure...or the 3rd...slow learner, I guess.

Jericson, You have hundreds of photos in this post that it takes forever to download. And while it's downloading the texts/media are jumping around trying to settle in, I guess. Although I enjoy your pictures, I am afraid of crashing my computer (don't think it would). So would you kindly create a Part II or something to this post? I'm not asking only for my own convenience, maybe others are having the same issues? Again, I enjoy your pictures. But in the time it takes to download this post, I could have transplanted an adenium or two. :laugh:

Yes, trees can also turn a hot yard into a cool, shady, oasis. But, in my opinion, that decision should be made by a homeowner about his/her own property, not by an inconsiderate neighbor. I'm not sure what makes anyone think it's okay to take away someone's sunlight like that. Not everyone likes shade. Not everyone wants their yard turned into a shady space and not everyone wants a tree shading their house and turning it into a dark cave. It's really inconsiderate, imo, to plant a big tree that shades your neighbor's yard and/or home. Additionally, if a tree is shading a neighbor's roof, that can interfere with their solar panels. Big trees certainly are beautiful, but they have their place and, imo, that place is not in small yards, especially when they shade a significant portion of a neighbor's yard or shade a neighbor's home. My user name is veggiegardnr. Do you think my ability to have/grow my little fruit trees and my vegetables should depend on whether a neighbor decides they want to plant a huge tree that will shade my yard? It's one thing to move into a house that already has a shady yard and little natural light inside the home. When you do that, you've made a choice that shade is fine by you. It's quite another thing to buy a home and then have your sunlight (and your ability to grow what you want on your own property) slowly taken away by an inconsiderate neighbor who plants a huge tree. I don't like it when tree people try to impose their shade on everyone else.