sounds like you are having heart problems. I would see a doctor. You may have cholesterol blocking up your veins and arteries. It sounds like you came close to dieing. I am serious here. You better get checked out by a doctor as soon as possible. SOMETHING IS DEFINITELY WRONG. and it is serious. I had something similar and wound up almost dead in the night. Do not be stupid like me. I was self diagnosing myself just like you are doing. But this time it is serious. You do not give the important info. like where you live, your age, your weight, your health conditions etc. You definitely have a serious problem. This is nothing to ignore. Get to a doctor immediately and get fully checked out. If the veins are plugging up from cholesterol then you get all the systems you mention. Tim Russert on TV died from this last week. The blood does not flow and get oxygen and you get hot and tired and weak. etc. PLEASE GET TO A DOCTOR AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AND GET FULLY CHECKED OUT. MY EMERGENCY Helicopter ride to the operating table was $6000. If I had gone in early, I could have saved a most expensive ride to the hospital and also saved damage to my heart etc.

allye, as I mentioned several years ago on this topic, once you go fully organic there should be a resurgence of predators that will take care of the bugs and bring everything into balance. As long as the bugs are not poisoned they should be attractive to birds, lizards, toads, and geckos. Sometimes a bird bath or bird feeder is the best way to control garden insects. I don't think changing the soil mix would be effective. If you have a wooden barrel, it could the the wood lice are there to feed on the decaying barrel. There is a lot of good information in your link. It does make the following statement which struck me wrong, "Unfortunately, the thick mulching and heavy compost use associated with good organic gardening provides Wood Lice with perfect conditions!" I guess I disagree that good organic gardening would necessarily require compost and thick heavy mulching. Guess it depends on what you're doing, but non organic gardeners might do the same things and organic gardens might not. In any case this is a nit and may be my personal peeve. Certainly if you are still following Rodale's guidance from the 1930s, then compost is king. But if you've modernized to the 1990s, then it's not of much importance at all.

ramazz, no it wasn't yours but that one is sure pretty, very unusual. It was a photo by the side of a house with two large patches of PS and some other flower. They weren't exactly like my photo either as to double. Kind of a double decker effect except the top part was the same size as the bottom. That's how I remember it anyway, and often my memory plays tricks on me. If I can find that thread again, I'll link to it, too far back now. token, one person's trash is another's treasure. I know photos can only show us so much, but I find yours rather interesting, not that I'd run right out and grow it. Expecting something different may skew your perception of it, but I'd let it grow another year and see what it is like. I think it's kind of pretty actually, certainly different. Nice assortment of flowers and plants in your photo. But if you have your heart set on a nice cherry brandy, I'd hope to get some seeds from posters who have the prettiest ones or just try something else. But before you shovel prune it, maybe somebody on freecycle would want it or gasp, somebody here might want some seeds from it. Or a plant hybridizer. Look at what you've got, something truly unique even though not to your liking. If it were crossed with other ones, it could lead to some stunning new Rudbeckia. A grower might even be interested in it. I don't know if white has even shown up in Rudbeckias before or not, and the potential for crosses, good bad and ugly are endless.

It's fun to try, but it's hard to get it to a truly year round system. For one, there's a period of winter/early spring, where there's not really anything producing, so you're counting on citrus that's still hanging from fall. Which is fine, as long as your citrus didn't freeze, which will happen sometimes in San Antonio. The bigger problem (for me at least) is discovering that you just have trouble with a particular fruit that's crucial to one of your months. For example, I've discovered that strawberries just don't work for me - between the pill bugs and the birds I just don't get anything from my little section of yard. Also, I can't seem to grow an apple tree if my life depended on it. I killed all my blueberries. Another thing to consider is wild fruit. Mulberries and Dewberries give me a good early spring harvest without having to grow them myself. Anyhow, This is a rough calendar for me (in south Houston): January: Overwintered grapefruit (Rio Red), strawberries February: Overwintered grapefruit (Rio Red), strawberries March: Mulberries (late), strawberries April: Mulberries, Loquats, Dewberries (late), strawberries May: Mulberries, Dewberries, early peaches June: Peaches(Bonanza), Plums(Santa Rosa), blackberries July: Figs, Pears (Tennosui) August: Figs, Pomegranates (late) September: Pomegranates October: Pomegranates, satsumas (late) November: satsumas, navels, grapefruit, lemons December: grapefruit, lemons I include strawberries because I can buy them from a nearby farm, not because I've been successful... Also, my trees are all small, so it's not like I have an ample harvest yet, but I do get a little most months. In some ways, I find veggie gardening more satisfying, since I get a lot consistently from a smaller space... Anyhow, good luck! It's always an adventure!!