Sorry if this sounds like a teacher giving a lecture... cause I was a teacher and it is kind of a lecture... but you asked... and I know sometimes when I'm questioning a problem in my garden, it helps if somebody takes me back and talks me through the basics. I know you are already a successful gardener, so take this as a friend helping you walk through the question... As has been previously noted, it is hard to respond to your question because the plants you listed are mostly not "Small Leafed" Lakeside Dragonfly registered with a 7x4 leaf and a 30" diameter plant. Most of us would call that a medium. This one was actually registered as a fast grower, but I started them from tc and have found them slow - but not difficult in any way compared with others. Lakeside Elfin Fire This is actually a mini... leaf 3x1... and with all the white, it can be touchy. Minis do require special care in tough climates... small root systems mean they can heave out of the soil during the winter... they can be covered by larger plants or suffer in competition for food and water. I grow mine in raised beds where I can better control growing conditions. i've kept one LEF alive... had to pull off a bunch of green last year, and the remaining looks pretty good-but-tiny this year... I probably wouldn't plant another... Stiletto glad I grew a bunch of these from tc before I heard they were problems for people... I have 3 or 4 around the place... easy to grow mounds about 2 feet across... nothing special required to grow them, but I have found them difficult to divide... tend to disintegrate into lots of plant fragrments and lose the nice mound shape. That might be the issue with people getting them going... a transplant is often just a bunch of rhizomes and eyes with little "root" structure. Hanky Panky for me it is staying much smaller than most of the other Striptease plants,,, mine have not done well in deep shade, and have not done particularly well in a lot of sun... I think it needs lots of light but not midday sun. With all its color changes, one might guess it is not a particularly strong photosynthesis plant. Also watch for sporting... I've got one that is almost overwhelmed by a sport that looks like Moonlight. Fire & Ice Notoriously difficult... too much white, not enough chlorophyll... Warwick Comet I don't have it Lakeside Paisley Print got a small one last year... no issues so far... good first year growth. I did put it in a bright-light holding bed where I can monitor soil and moisture. Allegan Fog - grows like a weed for me... or should I say, like an Undulata ;-) I keep chopping mine back to keep it in a 30" diameter space... mine is on the north side of a garage, so relatively low light... still grows surprisingly well considering how much white it has... (note: London Fog, the sport with little chlorophyll, is growing for me... but not nearly as fast and staying much smaller...) Wolverine - considered a pretty easy plant for most... and not small leafed... actually, with a registered mound size of 38" and leaves 10x6... I don't know if that is a medium or a large. Mine always stays around 24" So... the real question... why does an experienced grower like yourself have success with larger plants and less with these medium to small plants? Part of the answer you are getting here is - except for a couple on your list, it is not the plants. A Wolverine or Lakeside Dragonfly should not take any substantially different care than your successful medium - xlarge hostas. So there are only a few things to look at. Light... are they getting bright shade and not too much direct sun? Many hostas in too much light will have smaller leaves - the plant doesn't need as large a leaf to make food because of the brighter sunlight and it also protects itself against water loss from the hot sun by keeping leaf surface area down. If the conditions are too harsh, the plant will hang on but dwindle... until it passes on to that big garden in the sky. Soil - well drained soil? Young or struggling plants have trouble in heavy soil... hard to expand the root system into heavy soil, plus a tendency for moisture to hang on too long and rot the roots when it is wet and cold. They also have trouble in too light/sandy soil as the moisture doesn't hang around long enough for their small root system to keep them hydrated. Water... with well-drained soil, it is pretty much impossible to overwater hostas. Younger plants and smaller plants, with less-established root systems, are particularly susceptible to set-backs from insufficient water. root competition - young and small plants, with less-established root systems, will have a hard time getting the water and nutrients they need if they are competing with roots from established trees and shrubs. Larger hostas that are already established can (sometimes) hold their own. Your term dwindling may give the hint. They live, but don't thrive. One or two of the above conditions are not being met, resulting in struggle and/or death. Lots of good gardeners have designated special areas... a "holding bed" or nursery bed... melissa even has a NICU bed for those that are really struggling. You might want to consider creating a mounded area or raised bed with excellent soil and light conditions - I've even seen these in full sun, with a sun cloth canopy - where you can put the little ones in and monitor them... keep the moisture right... get them established... and then move them into more challenging garden conditions later.

Thanks for the comments tigerdunes. We've been over this quite a bit already. The pricing is average for the North East....labor rates tend to be quite high and the $600 rebate makes the price of the furnaces excellent. I obviously have two stage thermostats and the sizes of the furnaces were decided after heat loss calculations. I live in an older home in a cold climate and my calculations were within 10% of my contractor's. The calculation for my two floor unit came in at 75kBTUs. The contractor initially wanted to install a 100kBTU unit, but I talked him down to 80kBTU. The furnace for the renters below me is a bit large, but it was the smallest two stage available from American Standard. I thought about installing a 92% efficient 40kBTU single stage furnace with selectable motor speed, but as the 60kBTU two stage with variable speed motor was the same price after the rebate I went with that one.so that both furnaces essentially the same and to get the variable speed blower. I imagine having the second stage will also be nice on very cold mornings.

I'm also in the Bay Area and presume the OP has PG+E as I do. Gas and electricity charges are tiered by order of the PUC, a so-called "baseline" allowance for the first small tranche and then the "excess" rate. For me, the baseline is enough for water heating and cooking and was $1.19 per therm on my last few bills. The next tier, immediately reached in any month when heat is used, is $1.75. Yeah, it's high, compared to rates elsewhere in the country. I replaced two systems a few years ago. The HVAC contractor recommended sticking with 80% furnaces because he said there would be no payback for the incremental cost of more efficient ones, so that's what I did. I guess it depends on how warm one keeps the house during the winter. We tend to stick to the high 60s, with daytime and nighttime setbacks, and in a larger house than this one. I don't think I've ever spent as much as $750 per year on heating and it's usually less. To save 10-15% isn't going to get me very far any time soon. Also, because of the mild temperatures, single stage units seem to be the most common. HERS testing is required for all HVAC equipment replacement and installation jobs. It's basically testing by a 3rd party, not the HVAC contractor, for duct leakage and requires reasonably easily located holes be patched. For my job, I had them do a complete rehab and reinsulating of my old hard duct system anyway, and in advance, so the HERS testing was a non-event. But it does cost about $1K.

So what is your recommendation for high end split type inverter AC/HP systems? TD Tiger, HVAC is a service business. If you're local to me you can get my opinion that way. My opinion outside of a forum board isn't free, parts of my opinion aren't freely given... because then I sink to irrelevance. Plus what is here today, may be gone tomorrow. How many times do old posts resurface on this board? The vast majority don't view the HVAC market as a market that changes. The HVAC market is continually evolving. Remember I am not a tech or installer with no sway in what is chosen as a particular product to air condition or heat a structure. This is a forum board to serve the world. I don't serve the world in that way. If I offer my opinion on equipment, people will have vastly different experiences than if I were involved in the equation, other than just accepting my opinion then using someone else to do the work. How do you think I know this from my own market in Katy, Texas? If I give my whole opinion so freely... there is no worth to it. Value. This is a mile in my shoes kind of thing, I don't expect you to fully understand it. Another way of putting this is: You're not buying a toaster. That you simply plug in. You have to understand the point... I've installed probably over 1000 pieces of equipment since I started my HVAC company 11 years ago. Of those pieces they make up about 7 different brands. There is nothing wrong with any brand equipment (If there were how is it I have all this free time?), in terms of the name on the side of the unit. I've installed nearly every brand there is. I've repaired far more. (There are only 7 major manufactures of HVAC equipment... but a plethora of different models, features, functions, and cow dung mixed in between those models...) The problem, as I see it when it comes to certain brands: Prices charged for parts that were chosen by the manufacturer to build the unit. In the case of Trane, their own advertising says it's hard to stop a Trane. The blower motor they chose some how lets them off the hook? I don't think so. It's easy to argue that Trane didn't make the blower motor as Mr. Fudd suggests, but it's far harder to argue the price they charge for that part when compared to other manufacturers part prices not to mention that Trane was the entity that chose that blower motor for their system that is often sold as being better than something else. The part price for Trane blower motor shown in video above is nearly 5 times that of a competing brand that I've sold in the past. If I (a one man company) has installed over 1000 pieces making up 7-8 different brands has all this time to make videos, post in forum boards with lengthy posts... what does this tell you? Do I really have to point this out? Thanks for watching the video. I service the Katy, Texas area.