My guess is, that what goes around the southern France, Italy or Greece, will also go in that space. Hot summers and cold, but still rather mild winters. Stuff like Bourgonvilla might die down in the winter, but would perk right back up, in the spring! Stuff that goes outside, but has a short blooming period out there, might get a longer period inside (how does the smell of moonflowers from early July to mid November sound to you?). Eucalyptus might die down the first couple of winters, but will in time get very strong and tall. I think a bay-leaf would do well year round. Peaches and grapevines would do great as well, no doubt about that. Figs too. Passiflora actinia and caerulea plus some of the hybrids can withstand down to -8c/ 18f. I÷m envious!

I don't think I could do it, move that is. Not after 25 years of turning a nothing yard into flowers and beautiful shrubs. what I would suggest is collecting seeds from all of your annuals that you possibly can. Take cuttings of all perennials that you can and start rooting them now. If you wait any longer to start rooting them or taking root divisions, it will be too late to try and plant them in your new home. Maybe you should wait till next year and start the plans to sell in the spring. That way you will have all your annual seeds and divisions and root cuttings to start in your new home. Of course, you could do what a neighbor of mine just did. She'd lived in her home for over 40 years and moved into an in-law apartment with her son. This elderly woman dug up just about all of her perennials and annuals then end of july and moved them with her to her new home. She had to have had at least 200 plants with her. She did ask the new owners what, if any, plans they had for her gardens. They where kind enough to tell her they where going to demolish 5 of her garden beds to add on to the house and throw out all of the plants.!!!!! That's all she needed to hear, she started digging 3 weeks before they closed on the house. Yes she gave quite a few seeds and plants. No way where they going into the garbage heap.

I heartily approve of SqFt gardening. You will find it much, much, much easier than the old-fashioned big gardens with their long rows and many paths. I still have both, or to be correct, I have raised beds similar to SqFt, and DH has the old-type garden. I rarely need to pull weeds, while he spends much time doing so. I guess he likes pulling weeds, but that isn't my idea of something fun to do in 90° weather. Unless you plan to can or freeze extra produce, Bartholomew's list of planting times is very useful. His plan is to harvest continually, just enough for the next meal or two... but to keep on harvesting for month after month. You will like that method in Virginia, because we can use row cover w/plastic to start planting in early April (March for some things) and continue harvesting quite bit right into December. If you are just a bit farther south than I, you may find it possible to have tomatoes off-the-vine for New Year's (I usually harvest through November). If you are going to preserve food, use his chart to compute the best planting time, and then plant enough extra of whatever for at least one big session of preserving -- or you can pot-luck it and just put up a jar or two now and then. Potluck means no waste, but it also means you may not have enough of something to last through the winter. I freeze more than canning now, and have found that potluck does just fine, if I plant enough for 8 instead of for the 2 of us in the things I prefer to freeze (beans, limas, peas, broccoli, greens, tomatoes, peppers). But his best bit of advice is: if you aren't going to eat it, don't plant it! BTW, most of my beds are 3' wide... 4' is just too far for me to stretch across. And do mulch the paths around the beds... I don't recommend growing grass paths, because if you do, it will have to be mowed, and you can't mow very close to the bed, so you'll end up pulling grass out of the bed. Bah. Oh yes, look at the package: determinate tomatoes give you some and then a big harvest and then a few more. Indeterminate tomatoes give you some, and then some more and then some more -- not a huge amount at once, but they just keep on producing. Bush beans are similar to determinate tomatoes, and pole beans are keep-on-harvesting like indeterminate tomatoes. As far as everything else goes, just keep records for the future and enjoy the garden in the present.

Hi, TigerDunes, Thank you for your response. I'm thrilled to see that we shouldn't be expecting a minimum of $10,000 to $15,000!!! I posted at close to 1:30 a.m. Pacific Time, and I just got home from work about 7:30 p.m. so I'm just now getting online, after 8:00 p.m. Yes, we're sort of thinking we'd replace the furnace only, keeping the outside AC condenser. We're not at all opposed to replacing the AC condenser, but it hasn't given us problems, so if it would be a huge increase in cost to replace it, we'd skip that, at least on this go-round. If it's not a huge increase in cost, we'd replace it along with the furnace. Yes, we'd want a unit that's tax credit qualified. I have no idea what size and efficiency we're replacing. I looked for the booklet/paperwork on it before I came upstairs, but I can't find it. Used to keep all of those things in a drawer in the kitchen, but I discovered tonight that my husband repurposed that drawer for wine accessories... and he cannot remember where he put all of the booklets/paperwork, although he states he didn't throw the stuff away. I do know that the existing units (furnace and AC) have been sufficient to keep the house nice and warm in the winter and nice and chilled in the summer. There are just the two of us living here, and we both work full time, Monday through Friday. The set-back thermostat is completely programmed, both for summer and winter. The appropriate unit is programmed to come on approximately 30 minutes before I get up (takes me longer to get ready in the morning than it takes my Hubs), to warm/cool the house as necessary, and then it goes off (well, maintains a colder-in-the-winter or warmer-in-the-summer temperature) about 30 minutes before we leave for work, until about 30 minutes before we get home when it comes on again to again make the interior comfortable. Then it will cycle on/off as necessary throughout the evening until about 11:30 p.m. when it again shuts off and only comes on if it gets way too cold (winter) or way too warm (summer) overnight. On weekends it's programmed to not come on until about 90 minutes later than during the week, and will maintain the "morning temperature" throughout the day and evening and then shut off at 11:30 p.m. As for "normal winter temperatures" here... gosh... OK, I just Googled "normal winter temperatures for Sacramento, California," and one of the results had this to say: "Sacramento, CA climate is warm during summer when temperatures tend to be in the 70's and cool during winter when temperatures tend to be in the 50's. The warmest month of the year is July with an average maximum temperature of 93.80 degrees Fahrenheit, while the coldest month of the year is December with an average minimum temperature of 40.40 degrees Fahrenheit. Temperature variations between night and day tend to be relatively big during summer with a difference that can reach 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and fairly limited during winter with an average difference of 16 degrees Fahrenheit. The annual average precipitation at Sacramento is 19.87 Inches. Winter months tend to be wetter than summer months. The wettest month of the year is January with an average rainfall of 4.18 Inches." Another site said this: "The climate for Sacramento is Mediterranean with mild winters and dry summers. There is usually low humidity in the area. Light rainfall usually falls between December and February. Sacramento average annual rainfall is 17.18 inches per year The average winter temperature is 53.5 degrees F. The average spring temperature is 64.0 degrees F. The average summer temperature is 88.0 degrees F. The average fall temperature is 72 degrees F." It can, and does, get above 100 degrees in July and/or August. Every winter we probably have one or two nights where it gets down to the low 30-degree range. But as long as the house is somewhere in the low to mid 70-degree range in the winter, and no more than mid 80-degree range in the summer, we'd be happy. Does any of that help?