Your best resource would be the San Diego Rose Society. They are a society with active participation, and good consulting rosarians from all over the County. (And no. I'm not a member, but I know a good rose society when I see one.) :-) Jeri in Coastal Ventura County Here is a link that might be useful: San Diego Rose Society

Well, down in San Diego, there is a show and sale going on in Balboa Park that weekend. Pretty sure there will be some tillandsias on sale there as well as other broms (and probably a lot cheaper than anywhere else). With regards to tillandsias, I'll check who all is selling stuff, some people have a great selection at some sales. A lot of nurseries have at least some selection. Are you looking specific specimen plants, bulk, or just a range of selection? Everywhere from the box stores, Walter Anderson, Armstrong's, Exotic Gardens, and a bunch more. But most seem to have the same suppliers for the air plants so they tend to be the smaller/younger ones and somewhat the same selection. I'm not sure when Bird Rock is open and there is supposed to be something with cool random selection up around Rancho Santa Fe area (I think). I know I'm forgetting others, does anyone else in the area have other suggestions (and for me too)? Gonzer might have some suggestions for North County. -andy

porewit, et al: 1. I'm a firm believer in "right plant, right place". That is, San Diegans have a certain kind of soil and they shoudl stick to plants (overall) that are adapted to that kind of soil (heavy and neutral/alkline). The good news is, there are thousands of plants that fit that kind of soil. I think California gardeners, in general, make too big a fuss about the pH of our soils here. 2. Gypsum does not break up clay nor soils cemented together by iron oxide or calcium carbonate. Gypsum is used to break up soils that have no structure due to an abundance of salts (we call them "sodic" or "alkali" soils; not to be confused with "alkaline" soils). The gypsum replaces one ion for another (much as with water softeners) and allows such unstructured soils to develop a structure (flocculation). Our soils do NOT need calcium. 3. Sulfur doesn't really change pH significantly and it definitely doesn't work to alter pH over the long run. 4. The "tip": mulch (a verb). Mulching with a semi-decomposed organic material changes, at least subtlely, the chemistry of the soil and does, indeed, allow nutrients such as calcium and iron and other micronutrients to become available to the plants in the soil. Aside from choosing the right plants (see above), this is the best thing you can do for plants that DO need a slightly different soil chemistry. 5. Yep, some of our soils are high in potassium and that can be toxic to some plants. Not a lot of plants, mind you. A few special Australians. But again, it's all about right plant, right place. Joe

There are a number of different sorts of dementia, so she may or may not have AD, or be in the early stages. How old is she? Just being unpleasant isnt the worst thing in the world, altho there is obviously a sliding scale of unpleasantness, ranging from just mildly annoying to horrid. My mother was depressed and negative about everything, and I realized that Dad, beforw he died, had always been the pleasant, social part of the equation, and he kept her from being too bad. AFter he died, she was miserable. And told me so every day. Sigh. OK, what to do with someone whom no one likes? You can check her into the AL home (will she recover from the broken bones enough to return to her home? What's THAT assessment?) and come out only for emergencies. As people get older, they tend to have more and more emergencies. At a certain stage, I figured that I had to be with Mother for every doctor visit she had, for every banking transaction, for more and more little things that she could no longer cope with. It would be a call to say that her TV was dead, and she needed to get a new one. She had merely hit the TV/VCR button (and there was no VCR) on the remote. I could not talk her thru it on the phone, and so I'd go over there and tell her that I needed to replace the battery in the remote, when all I really did was hit the TV button to make the remote work again. See what I mean? So you can leave her far away from family, by her own choice, but somewhere down the road, if she indeed does have dementia, AD or not, you'll find that family members will spend more and more time on a plane and in a hotel dealing with her problems. I understand all too well all the people in retirement homes or AL facilities or nursing homes who complain that their families are not visiting. Between you and me, many of these people have been unpleasant and actively driven off their families. Or their families just don't try to push thru just enough to make a compromise. As in, yeah, mother is a PITA but at least I can sleep at night because I see her for lunch once a week. Some people (and this is not a negative, IMHO) can sleep at night anyway, just knowing that Mother is housed, fed and safe. Families all deal with these things differently. Good luck. This isn't easy, nor are there any 'correct' answers.