Your yard looks quite a bit like mine did when I moved in -- 30 years ago! Mine is south-facing, had (still has-only three times bigger now) a mature spruce in the centre of it. I worked hard over many years to downsize the amount of grass drastically and I 'worked' with the spruce rather than fighting it in my design plans. The first thing I did though, was to replace the fence. I found the size of my yard a little daunting at first but when I visualized it as distinct areas (like rooms) I soon began to see how I could design effectively and create functional walking and seating areas and nice views. A few things I'd suggest: deciduous trees on the south will always give you direct light and appreciable solar gain in the winters while coniferous to the north will shelter your home. Leave extra generous space between trees that will grow large and plan pathways and window-views accordingly, remembering too that many mature trees (spruce for example) will likely have big roots above or near the surface and in time will push up and may break nearby concrete paths as well as interfere with other plantings nearby. Another thing to consider is what your neighbours have in their yards and how their trees and other structures affect your yard and might affect later on. For me, 30 years later, between my own trees and my neighbour's I receive only small patches of sunlight that move with the sun and I receive no direct sun in early morning and evening. It's still a nice place to be, though my vegetable gardening consists only of tomatoes and herbs in moveable pots. Hope this helps.

I have the Bosch Dishwasher you are looking at, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the silverware drawer. The only drawback is the dishwasher somehow gets little tiny food items like lemon seeds stuck in the sprayer that sprays the second drawer and that of course keeps things from getting clean, and it struggles with dishwasher pods, never fully getting the soap off so a second rinse cycle is needed. However, the later problem may be electrical, I think the dishwasher got hit in a big electrical storm because it acts funny now, like it's hard drive is failing. Back to the lemon seeds which is a problem even without the dishwasher getting hit with electricity, no idea how they get in there. That should not happen, but it does so just watch for it. The silverware drawer is worth it. I don't have the ranges, I have the Thermador 36" cooktop with the simmer burners which I LOVE. I had the Thermador cooktop in my last house and loved it so much I went to buy the professional version but was disappointed to discover it only had huge burners, and I use lots of little pans, so I stayed with the cooktop which is half the price and far more flexible. The simmer burners are FABULOUS. As far as I know, Thermador is the only one with that feature, but that may have changed. The star shaped burners are spectacular as well. We have a SubZero fridge, counter depth, double size fridge, but normal size freezer (maybe 40" wide?), which we love as well. Bought it used for $1,200 (it was 15 years old) and it still runs like a champ, those older Subzeros are built to last forever. We have a Thermador warming drawer which is great as well, although be careful with the tracks the drawer runs on, if they are forced/manhandled, they are plastic (!) and break easily and are a pain in rear to fix. And a Miele steam oven which I LOVE as well. My appliances do not match, and it's not a big deal, no one appliance maker can excel at every appliance, so I would recommend getting the ones you love. Match the exterior color and style as much as possible, don't worry as much about the brand.

The idea that agricultural use of peat contributes to an unsustainable harvest rate is far from the truth. I would concede the point if everyone in Canada and the northern tier of states was burning it as fuel, but consider: In Canada alone, there are more than 270 million acres of harvestable peat bogs - that's harvestable. Not taken into account are the millions of additional acres of bog that are not deemed harvestable because of their size or location. If we make the conservative guess that the harvestable portions of these bogs are 10 feet deep, that means there are probably more than 900 billion cu. ft. available for harvest, just in Canada! That doesn't even take into consideration what's available in Europe, Asia, or places like New Zealand where they also mine peat. Canada currently has mining/harvesting operations underway on approximately 40 thousand acres or about .014% (that reads 14 one thousandths of 1 percent) of their harvestable peat. You'll find the math accurate and conservative. It's more likely that the next Laurentide Ice Sheet will be upon us and glaciers will have covered what's available before we even use a notable fraction of one percent. As peat bogs grow, their depth is increased by a paltry 1mm per year, approximately. Based on current harvest rates in North America, peat is accumulating at a rate approximately 70x greater than what is being lost to harvest. You can probably tell I don't feel guilty about using peat. I agree that both peat and coir can be left out of the lawn/garden equation altogether, and compost would also be my first choice as a top dressing or soil amendment, but we part ways again when we turn to use of peat vs coir or compost in container media. Peat and coir have moisture retention curves that are close enough you would be hard pressed to say one has much advantage over the other. Coir does have less loft (so less aeration) and tends to compact severely if watered from the top or used as a large fraction of a medium - more than 25%. For this reason, most greenhouse ops that use significant amounts of coir in their media sub-irrigate. Too, one should not think all that needs to be done is substitute coir for peat in container media and all will be well. Coir is chemically different than peat and requires work-arounds if we are to avoid unnecessary limitations of plant potential. For example, coir is often high in salinity and can contain toxic levels of Na. It has an extremely high K content, and it's notably higher pH (than peat) means dolomite is not suitable as a liming agent/source of Ca/Mg. Gypsum should be used as a Ca source, which acts remedially to fix coir's low S content as well. My go to medium for garden display containers/veggies is (by volume): 5 parts pine bark (dust to 3/8) 1 part perlite (medium - soil mix grade) 1 part peat (more or less - depending on the particle distribution of the bark) Dolomite Micromax I've done a number of comparisons between plants grown in the medium above, contrasted with media in which I substituted coir for peat or CHCs for the pine bark, and the results were extremely telling ..... which is what started my investigation into coir and why it might be performing so poorly. What I use for short term container plantings - no more than 2 years: What I use for long term plantings - woody material growing on as potential bonsai, and refined bonsai; succulents; cacti; anything that might be in the same medium for more than 2 years: It's equal parts by volume of screened pine or fir bark, screened Turface MVP, and screened granite in grower size or screened quartzite in size 2. There are no fine particles in this mix. Some mixed plantings: Al

Celestina: 1. From the Miele Australia website: "The Sensor wash/Automatic programme uses as little as 6.5 litres* of water - significantly less than filling your kitchen sink. " NB 6.5 L = 1.72 gallons. https://www.miele.com.au/domestic/1752.htm?info=200019017-ZPV 2. From CNet: " An Energy Star certified dishwasher can use as little as 3 gallons per load (around 11 litres), according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. In fact, an Energy Star certified dishwasher can save almost 5,000 gallons of water per year. " https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-much-water-do-dishwashers-use/ 3. Australia uses a slightly different rating system from the US: all dishwashers are rated for both energy and water efficiency. Water consumption is rated from one to six stars. The dishwashers are assessed on the amount of water needed to wash a load and on the average water usage per place setting. Both figures are available for each dishwasher on the WELS rating site. The lower the amount needed to wash a place setting, the higher the star rating. There are over 1000 dishwasher models rating 4 to 6 stars on the site, with water consumption per load ranging from 6.5 L to 14 L. (ie from 1.72 gallons to 3.70 gallons). The one and two stars obviously are the least efficient, especially in terms of water used per setting but the highest water consumption figure I could find belonged to a couple of two stars that use 19L for a full load. That's 5 gallons. http://www.waterrating.gov.au/choose/compare#dishwashers 4. These numbers are possible because, as I mentioned, dishwashers recycle the water they use throughout the washing cycle.