As a European I could never understand in the begin, when I came new to this island, why the houses here have so many trees around in the yards. Of course, the only one reason is to get enough SHADE, the most important thing in hot summer days down here, it's cooling off your house in a natural way too, not only with the running Air conditioner. Today I'm happy for so many trees as possible....
In Europe - and special in Switzerland where I was at home - we have not that many trees and not that close to the houses at all, they would be only covering up the beautiful view to the lakes and to the mountains. :-)
