Kevin, I was thinking about this thread this morning, and I had to kind of laugh - it falls into the "be careful what you wish for" category, lol. My neighbor (not the tree-cutting one, the one on the other side) has a very sunny yard - boy, does he love his lawn! - and I really am very divided on this issue. On one hand, I, like terrene, drool over his sun and imagine the garden beds I would build there, but when I walk from my yard over to his, I can literally feel the temperature rise! His yard is so hot! That where my dilemma comes in. While I would love to be able to grow more sun-lovers, I do so love my shade. My yard (and house) is cooler in the summer, my guests can sit and refresh themselves in my shade gardens, and it just has such a peaceful, refreshing feel to it. I'm almost glad my other neighbor took down the trees, because I don't think I would take the initiative to do so. Unfortunately, the orientation of my yard is such that to have full sun, I'd have to take the trees down in the front/side yard. Of course, these are the beautiful, three- and four-trunked oaks. The scrubby, non-descript oaks are in the back (northeast) and on the north side of the house, so taking those down wouldn't make much difference anyway. I would look at your situation as a chance to plant new stuff! How about a small tree or a large shrub that would throw some shade onto your now-frying garden? I'm sure you can convince yourself into buying *something*, no? ;) Dee

Plant warm season stuff. Okra, cowpeas, sweet potatoes, ect. It's not too late for those.

Assuming you did your tests as described, it does appear reasonable to suspect that this could be related to the installation of the smart meter. Without getting into all the debate about smart meters, and only looking at the possible way the meter could affect something connected to your wiring, there are really just two possibilities. One, could be noise on the wiring caused by something like a poor connection in the meter base from oxidation on the socket contacts, which may just require it to be reseated. Do you have any flickering in your home lighting? Two, would be if, as weedmeister suggested, the power company is using PLC - power line carrier/communication - for the link. The are a number of communication options available that are being deployed often depending on geography, the number of meters, and the utility wiring infrastructure. The most common are RF wireless access point, RF relay network, RF mesh network. They all typically transmit in the 900-925MHz range and would not be a source of your problem. There is however PLC which is used in some areas. The data is modulated on an analog carrier between 10-500kHz over the power lines and could, although highly unusual, possibly be the cause of your problem. You said the problem does not occur on your UPS power but if is not an "always-on" UPS, the most it could be doing is using it's EMI filter to remove any interference. Your next step would probably be to call the utility company, but first you may wish to find out the type of communication method used by the smart meter to the utility in case it could be PLC related.

Thank you, wayne. I will take some time to identify some of the damages that may not be so apparent at this point, esp. with the trees. My poor Norkent looks terrible and not surprisingly, some of the apples have fallen off, while many are still on the tree. However, some of those on the tree also look a bit bruised by the awful hail stones. I think that the poor apple tree must be trying to recover from it, and I wonder if these apples will mature properly this year. My Toba Hawthorn has quite a few young leaves taken off, but overall it looked OK. Then my little Ohio Buckeye has quite a few leaves fallen too, but since it's a smaller tree, it may actually recover better than the larger ones. Thank goodness my recently planted Gladiator Crabapple looked fairly OK. Obviously some minor damages but overall it seems to be OK. We shall see! My evergreens have come through like a champ - love them!