Thank you all for your input! Hubby and I are leaning towards the parthenocissus for the majority of the wall planted somewhere near the right (front) end. But I'm not sure which species would do well in my climate zone and in these conditions where the sun would be on that section for the entire day. Mine is fine with sun hitting it the entire day. If the leaves look scorched, water a bit more. Avoid P. quinquefolia (Viginia creeper) because it is too rampant. Named varieties of other species will be more tame. Expect a year or two to establish a good root system before the plant really takes off, but you should get some coverage the first year. Also, if those sticky suckers flake off, will the plant be at risk of falling off the wall? No. If some bit of the plant accidentally gets pulled off the wall, just cut that part off because it won't re-attach. A new bit will grow and stick on its own. Also, I'd still like to do one bougainvillea on the opposite corner. Anyone have tips for pruning to keep it the shape I want? Use a hedge trimmer and just shear it close to the wall. Bougies bloom on new growth, so new growth = flowers, so cutting back = more flowers, not less (within reason). Do not trim a baby plant too much. Let it establish. I'd like to have it climb up the wall at the corner and then most trail across the top section of the wall. In this situation where it will be attaching itself to the wall, how can I help direct its growth since there's nothing to tie pieces to as one would if growing on a trellis. Bougies won't attach themselves. You will have to install some strong wires or a trellis and use them to attach. Would also appreciate help on choosing a bougainvillea veiety suitable to this location/climate. I'm hoping "Orange Ice" will work because I really love the colors. A non-red color will be much less rampant and would be a good choice. Check on performance for that particular variety in your area--have you seen one growing in your neighborhood that looks good? Plant bougies in June or July when the soil is warm and do not disturb the rootball. Baby bougies are easily killed because the roots are so frail and brittle and need warmth. Established bougies are nearly impossible to kill. For planting slit the planting pot up, place the pot in the planting hole and gently pull out the pieces of the pot, leaving the roots as undisturbed as you can. Should I purchase online or would local nursery be better to ensure getting plants that are best for my area? If you have a good quality garden center nearby, that should be fine. Neither genus is particularly rare or hard to find.

Thanks everyone. My gardener and his crew are great, and don't worry - they are appreciated. It's just that I have no gardening expertise and when I came home and saw my pergola and trellis denuded I was literally in tears. I have enjoyed looking at them all through the winter, dead as they were. I will now take a deep breath and accept that there will be a time of year where my pergola and trellis will be somewhat denuded, in the interest of maintaining the pretty white wooden backdrop. Although I respect my gardener, he is self-taught and so I thought it was entirely possible that there were options out there of which he was not aware (or which the PO rejected for some reason). Having explored and googled a bit and read your comments, we will sit tight with what we have. Hose - LOL, thank you. We deserve no credit for the scences you see; and they are a key part of the entire magical look of this property which compelled us to but the house and move our family here totally on a lark! The contractor did replace the vines, btw. I will post a link with more photos for you. Natal - not too humid here in CT. I like the green moss myself, but I guess the clematis against true white is even niceer. Woody - yes, its scented. It was cut back pretty much to the top of the columns. Duly noted on the roses. I think i might have New Dawn elsewhere already. It is very pale pink and smells wonderful! I am just finding my way with our property, which is extensively landscaped. I hired a landscape architect who had done our old home, and his ideas were way too formal and structured. So I've not implemented them. Then I got someone at my local nursey to draw plans for some beds on the far side of the pond. They were not woodland at all, and they had way too much variety of plant material for an area I want to be pretty but natural. I can tell this is going to be a long process getting everything the way I want it and, as always, there is no substitute for the unbiased expertise of GW. Thanks!

Peter- Thanks for the link to the Intelliflo technical discussion. Obviously this was an Intelliflo only discussion and only addressed low speed efficiency. Variable speed pumps with BPM motors will always use less power than a PSC motor at low speed. There is no argument here. However, variable speed at higher speeds suffers from large power consumption due to two primary power robbers 1) high current inversion of AC to DC power in the VFD, which is very inefficient and produces a lot of waste heat as a result 2) Compromised impeller design because the impeller can not operate at peak efficiency for a large gpm range so the engineers have to make a choice where they want to optimize the impeller and at the same time a choice at where the impeller will not be very efficient. In the case of Intelliflo, from their published power, TDH and gpm curves, they have optimized for low speed operation and rightly so, but this choice also causes the higher speed efficiency to be miserable. Also of note, while I agree with your warning of using FLA to estimate power consumption, I would also add that the Intelliflo curve is true power consumption in watts and not FLA. Using FLA to calculate 2 speed pump power is worst case and, to your point, will only be better in the real world which makes the 2 speed even more favorable over variable speed. Just wanted to offer a balanced view here. Variable speed has its own merits, mainly low speed efficiency and ability to tune flow to plumbing resistance for optimum performance. But, to suggest using a variable speed pump for multi-tasking, which requires higher speeds, is not doing the energy conscious homeowner any good. In the case of pools with multiple water features or in-floor cleaners which require higher flows, multiple 1 speed or 2 speed pumps that are tuned for the higher flows will always save energy over a variable speed that is trying to inefficiently cover a large operating range. jj- In your case with a floor cleaning system...the floor cleaner will have to run for about 2 hours a day to get full rotation of the heads and full cleaning. For other hours of the day, the pump can ran at low speed allowing the pump to operate easier against lower resistance providing turnover and filtering for your pool. A variable speed or a 2 speed will both provide energy efficient operation for your cleaning and filtering needs. Only you can make the decision if you want to spend the extra money for the variable speed. To help you justify the extra cost for variable speed over 2 speed, use 200 watts per hour savings over 2 speed at low speed and 1,000 watts per hour cost over 2 speed at high speed. Knowing how long you will run the pump at high and low speed will allow you to calculate how much money is saved per day with variable speed and 2 speed, helping to make your decision. Hope this helps!

I'm not sure I understand your question. With a pool cover, you actually lose less water because it's not evaporating. When you say "cover housing", I think you are referring to what I call the "trough" -- the hole that the cover retracts into. There should really not be any pool water in that trough. When it rains, you will use a pump (like a sump pump) that will sit on top of the cover, it will have a water house attached and you can direct the water it pumps off to go wherever you want. We alternate between pumping it into our yard, or pumping it to the deck drains which is tied into the underground gutters and directed to the street. When you retract the cover with any water on it, it may slosh into the trough -- BUT if there is much water, the water gets heavy and the cover will not operate. It's trial and error but once you do it a few times, you will figure it out. You can back up the cover and then start it again and let it dump into the trough. Our trough is covered with Trex (plastic wood-look). Our builder thought it would be better than using concrete coping because the coping would be so heavy to remove when you need to access that trough. But our builder has not built many pool covers, so I'm not sure that was the best advice. I sort of wish we had a different design there. I haven't looked under there in a long time to see if there is much standing water (could be mosquito problem??) but I don't notice mosquitos coming from there, and when we have looked in there, nothing has concerned us. My husband removes the Trex in the spring after the oak trees are finished with all their mess and cleans / vacuums the trough out. We have the crepe myrtle that sheds and so there is debris that will get dumped into that trough throughout the year. Obviously if there are lots of debris, after a storm, we clean that before retracting the cover, but we don't clean it every time by any means. Overall -- I still love having the cover. BIG piece of mind on the safety front with 2 kids now! We can still enjoy our yard in the winter without safety concerns. The pool stays much cleaner. We use less chlorine and water.