Thanks for the suggestions! blakrab: Diciduous is ok. I'm surrounded by evergreens, so it's nice to have some diversity. not sure if we have any other open space to plant more though (property is overrun by coast live oak which sprout like weeds here. Every year I pull out about 20-30 saplings, and seems like I'm making no dent in the growth density here... every few years I have to have one cut down since they start crowding eachother too much). I'll take a close look at the Texas persimmon. Is that anything like the persimmons you find sold in stores? (orange fruit)? There are few of those in the area. if so, may be there'll be enough in the area without having to plant another in our lot... hoobv: it's a pretty densely vegetated hillside property, so fire is always a concern. But never really thought bout tree-fire exposure (we're usually more concerned with shrub/grass fire). I said 15ft, but just looked at the survey map, and it seems like it's actually more like 25 ft from the house. making a terrace is an interesting idea. the tree can be taller, as long as it's the type that is conducive to shaping/height reduction management. but taller tree usually means faster growth (may be) and hard to manage? and thank you for the tree selection guide. I'll ahve to take a look at that. An arborist who just came by recommended chinese pistachio. He said around here, it doesn't get much bigger than about 25ft or so, and has great fall foliage, drought tolerant.. doesnt require too much water in the summer so won't hurt the juniper either (I called it juniper, but arborist said cypress, so... hmm). The tree sounded good until I found out that it has a potential of growing to 60ft.. i'll have to do more research on that tree.

Stan, Don't believe everything you see on television, especially with regard to average winter temps in Capetown and the Cape of Good Hope. They can and do get some frost there occasionally, as they have varied microclimates due to elevation and topography. wind is also much more a factor there, and weather is very inconsistent on a day to day basis as they do get cold fronts off the Antarctic as well as the Atlantic. From my observations of what is growing well in Capetown, I would say the climate is most similar to San Diego in general, but with more winter rains, and 80F is not a typical long term average daily high in winter there. I visited over a 6 week period in the Western Cape in August/September, and the weather was very much like what we get here in the SF Bay Area in mid to late spring. You needed a jacket on many days, there was typically driving windy days alternating with warmer ones, and there was snow on the mountains in back of Capetown above 5000 foot elevation, although it didn't last for more than a week at a time. Even the subtropical parts of coastal eastern South Africa can also get the occasional frost, and has, so don't believe that it never gets down to freezing along the coast from perhaps Port Elizabeth west to Capetown. As you get to Durban and points east/north, it is distinctly subtropical with no frost, unless you get inland and up into the mountains. Not really safe to generalize about South Africa unless you live there or look up the climate records... And Capetown does get their local equivalent of Santa Ana winds which result from compressed, heated air descending from the interior mountainous plateau when they get offshore wind conditions. The hot drying winds or the cold onshore winds can be really hard on gardens in Capetown, and large leafed tropicals that need lots of water fair poorly there in such events, and water is costly to provide.

The owner of this place is a complete a**hole. Note the vicious and condescending attitude as he dumps on mistreated customer on the yelp.com website -it seems like Wison is in the habit of taking orders from people without providing accurate pricing information, then tries to intimidate them into paying gold-plated retail price. Do yourself a favor ! Go to UC Glass Co., get treated with respect. 'cuz you won't be getting any from Wilson -unless maybe you're from Beverly Hills ! Maybe the place to go if you're oozing money and don't care how greedy the business owner is, as long as you get your perfect precious megabuck architectural whatever. A complete disgrace to the city of Berkeley.. Here is a link that might be useful: review of Wilson glass

No,fori, the Dealer doesn't have a hand in service. The dealer just displays,sells and delivers the range. I bought my Bluestar from a small appliance store in Oakland,(Reed's), but there are many good retailers around here. The important thing is the distributor, as mentioned above, in our area that's Golden West... They are important because they are responsible for the service contracts.. and they seem to me to be very good. You can call them and ask them questions, and they are the folks who connect you to a "repair service firm". They (the distributor) will want to know where you bought your new range, because they're only responsible for the ranges that went through them. If you buy a range over the internet, then you will have a different, and not local, distributor to handle your problems and they may not know who's good in your area. Gourmet Appliance is one of the firms that Golden West uses. I don't think they even sell stuff, but are only a high end repair company. Their business card lists Thermador, Gagganau, DCS, Viking, Wolf, etc. etc. If you want their opinion of Bluestar as far as repairs go, you can call them their number is (650)212-6100. When I got their number from Golden West, I was told that if they couldn't come out fast enough, that I should call the Distributor back and they would connect me to another firm for the repair. This makes me think that Golden West probably uses several different repair services in our area.