I'd suggest a book titled Hortus Third. I've had this book for 32 years. It doesn't have any frills, just black and white drawings of the plant parts for most of the plant families. It looks like a big dictionary (and it is, of plants) and if you aren't serious about plants you won't use it. When you look up a begonia it'll tell you why it's a begonia and the differences between the species and cultivars. Anita

We are happy to announce the latest news from the California Coastal Rose Society. My friend Jim informed me today that he believes we are the first rose society making this connection between web site, newsletter and the world wide web. The response today was wonderfully overwhelming, my mailbox is filled with a huge number of responses. I thought you would like to see it as well. In addition, we have other firsts, there is the exciting news about our CCRS Wine. We have commissioned a winery in Northern California which will produce wine as trophies with our own custom label that I have designed for our 2008 rose show - details are in the newsletter - Cheers! The Coastal Rose Brenda Landers-Smith, Editor This issue marks the beginning of another progressive step for the California Coastal Rose Society. Jane Diliberto served faithfully as Newsletter Editor from 2000 - 2004, Cindy Beatty Hendrix was another outstanding editor for the year 2005. Jane continued on from 2006 to June 2007. Her resignation early this summer opened up a discussion regarding the future direction of the newsletter. The consensus was to connect the newsletter to our award winning web site in a way that provides our members the best education and resources to grow better roses. Our research revealed that 85% of our members have Internet access. The 15% who do not have Internet access will receive the newsletter via postal mail. The significant cost savings was an important element in the decision to ensure our membership dues remain affordable to everyone. You will notice throughout this email newsletter, there are many links to the world wide web. We are quite possibly the first rose society in the United States taking this step in communication. In the future we will be offering creative,informative surveys,"gifts" and resources to our members through this new vehicle. In addition, I have had the honor and privilege to obtain several notable authors and renowned rosarians who will provide regular monthly columns to The Coastal Rose. The future is bright for CCRS! Also, I am very happy to announce a cooperative effort with Marcia Sanchez-Walsh, President of the Los Angeles Rose Society uniting our two societies with several exciting opportunities. Her fresh, bright and positive influence has inspired a remarkable friendship you will enjoy in the near future. Our goal is to expand your garden of knowledge in a way that you will find convenient, innovative and exciting. Welcome to the first on line newsletter from the California Coastal Rose Society. Click here for the actual email as it appeared today in its debut: Here is a link that might be useful: The Coastal Rose Preview

ON MAY 25th DUKE FARMS IS GOING TO CLOSE AND DESTROY DORIS DUKE'S BEAUTIFUL DISPLAY GARDENS. If you have been to Duke Gardens you know just how wonderful and unique the International-themed Gardens are. People come from all over the world to visit them, and we can visit other countries without leaving New Jersey!! It is a wonderful educational resource for both adults and children. Now the people who have taken charge of Duke Farms want to close and destroy them because they don't think that the Display Gardens are 'their focus'. Their interest is in natives and the environment, and they don't want to see anything else but that. The Duke Trustees will go down in history as destroying one of our state's great legacies if we let them. WHAT CAN YOU DO: Visit this website for more information and pre-written emails to send out in protest of the horrific destruction of one of New Jersey's most beautiful attractions. www.savedukegardens.org Please visit today and send protest emails. Also send this email to everyone you know to get them to protest too!

You may find it funny but I observed same flaws in thinking in construction and design as I see in medicine or education. Symptomatic treatment of the paradigm flaws. With respect, it is far more likely that you observed some flaws in YOUR thinking. Your entire premise is based on one faulty assumption, "My naive and most likely old-fashioned expectation is that somebody who works with buildings will have all encompassing and comprehensive knowledge about the matter at hand." The problem being that what you are describing has never really existed. It doesn't even make sense, we know that our ability to learn and retain knowledge has increased very slightly over time, we also know that we have more knowledge of our profession and that overall we dedicate a larger amount of our brain to our profession. This leads to only one rational conclusion, and it is the conclusion that has broad support, that "the good old days" were never really that good. In fact, we can clearly demonstrate the progression from less to more knowledge specifically in construction. In the end, those highly knowledgeable generalists were simply deficient in a time where everyone was deficient. The idea that we used to be less specialized and better is absolutely fabricated. As is the diatribe that modern medicine treats the symptom rather than the cause. It is completely fabricated by people who want you to buy into a treatment path that is not as effective but oddly costs more. The idea that modern medicine doesn't marry allopathic and osteopathic is simply not correct. Both schools of medicine treat both the symptoms and the disease and they have for many years. Modern medicine hasn't had an allopathic focus for 70 years. Yet there are people who pretend that modern medicine is still selling miracle cures from carpetbags. It is also disingenuous to pretend that we have an increase in diseases like cancer when what we really have is a decrease in other diseases. This isn't rocket science, as we increase the survival rates from other conditions the conditions with low survival rates will kill more people. And in other news, the sky is up, I repeat the sky is now up! The real reason that medical science struggles is because we are really good at diagnosing conditions in an autopsy and really bad diagnosing most other times. We really don't have the technology to identify disease in any timely way, not to mention search for a timely cure. Blaming that on a lack of generalists is ridiculous.