however,... -now- most of our consumers want something better (more specific than random cutting 'for health'), just can not find it, because it is not available. However, it was only through the arborists repeating that topping would kill/damage trees that the consumers finally asked for something else. Industry driven rather than consumer driven. And consumers still want trees topped. Even when consumers know better, in the vacuum of technical availability, they begin to give up, which is a usual thing, -- and the lowest activity required always wins out. had a conversation today about landscape standards, how to improve etc., and because they need to be written, quantified for testing of applicants, they will always be low so that they are achieveable by the lowest general applicant... -and that 'standards' are mostly hardscape, brickwork etc. -something easily time/standard measureable, which is product driven rather than consumer driven. ie: the paving person -> consumer has a selection of brick (patterns, NB) made available to them which is limited by what the manufacturer provides, and, based on the pavers preference, the consumer gets to choose from his favourites... --pattern NB, which then establishes the pattern for our paving areas. Now this pattern may cause anxiety due to the pattern repetitions, color, angle it is installed in, the way light reflects upon it, and so on.. and many people have come to 'not like that pattern' of brickwork, never identifying why they don't like, and, have not alternative for an area, except asphalt or gravel ... I'd have to observe that if consumers wanted to lower their blood pressure, they'd be asking for this, but industry reigns... by contrast, the Japanese gardener interviews the client, determines a pattern that would be (ie) soothing, determines the angle of visual incidence for maximizing opportunities, (example, mixing large stones, euro pavers with smaller patterns creates a more soothing environment (reducing heartbeat/blood pressure) than does the old Holland, Keystone bricks... and the only very slow response on the suppliers part has been to produce the tumbled Euro stone, -comparatively again, the Jgardener mixes the natural stones with the manufactured stone to fine tune the 'human response' to it... therefore, our producers drive the market completely, and the Japanese gardeners are bucking the system, whereas the consumers fall prey to the 'low achiever/ high turnover - $$ in pocket' landscapers, because they 'don't have to think about it', or they don't want to 'be too different', never having seen the options available. compare again, in many cases, for about the same money, walkways etc. it will cost less to put in a Japanese pattern of walkway than brick pavers. The converse is also true, depending on the application. At the end of the day, dear sus, I'd have to say that trying to educate the pre-conditioned consumer is a waste of time, whereas making more product available and educating installers, may have a hope... I wonder often if maintenance and development is the same thing, finding that consumers don't want to understand development, because they will have to think about it.. to develop into what??? ooops, can't you just maintain it??? I don't want to think about it. this would indicate the gardener should just 'maintain' and develop as he goes, which would indicate industry education is in priority to consumer education.. --which means it won't ever be successful, because there is no 'need' for it, because, both parties, would have to 'think about it' which they don't want to. (ie: "hey, ya know they don't pay me enough to think...") ? thoughts, suggestions ? edzard

Hi dchall, I'm over in College Station. No, I hadn't found the FAQ yet (I don't think so anyway... Read so much lately!), but I will certainly go hunt it down. On my first couple of posts, I was definitely fixated on NPK... Within a couple of minutes of my reply wondering if I should wait for the soil test, I found an article that turned on the protein/carbs light for me though exactly along the lines of what you are saying. Although the light is on, it's flickering a little still though.... :) I see time after time where people are comparing the NPK of grains/meals. My current assumption is that the NPK of grains is still relevant b/c the microbes I'm trying to feed w/ protein/carbs are releasing it into the soil as they work on digesting the grain (along with lawn clippings, etc.)... So I may still have a little brain fog, but I'll keep researching and put NPK on the mental back burner. I homebrew beer and there is a hops shortage this year, so I decided to plant some several weeks back. I dug up a new planter along the side of the house where I was seeing the yellowing the most. The grass is pretty well rooted. Not terribly deep, but certainly not above ground. (That weekend I would have been happy to have had such a bad problem that all of my roots were in a thatch layer!!! My back still hurts from removing all that grass!). So I do have room for improvement on the root depth, but I THINK that I have caught on to all of this in enough time to not be as bad off as I could have been and can continue to wean it off of water. I had reduced watering last year to about an inch per week, but I did it cold turkey. I've turned off the automatic sprinklers several weeks ago and am trying to just water when the soil is drying now. On the homebrew topic, I read last night that spent grain (barley) is high in protein (but most of the carbs are pulled out in the brew process). I sometimes spread those out on the lawn (blindly thinking "this decays, it's probably good for the lawn"). I'll have to start doing that more regularly. I don't make enough to cover the whole lawn, but it's nice to learn that it is a safe supplement.

Thanks for the tip but that site doesn't allow electrical questions per their policy here: http://www.mobilehomerepair.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5628&sid=54450981630b90ba039a1c777536a60f Pretty short sighted and arrogant on their part to decide that anyone who has to ask an electrical question is too stupid to do their own electrical work - especially since I see electrical questions posted by master electricians on some real forums and by licensed electricians very often on almost any electrical forum.

landa_mac - your posts on this forum are generally informative and well reasoned. I honestly have learned a lot from them. In this case I think you are missing my point. Pentair has created a CLOSED, PROPRIETARY automation system for the pool which is DIFFICULT to interface with the rest of the systems in the home. On estates such as the one we are building, this prevents integrating for example, water and music systems in any meaningful way. Yes, you can buy or get for free products from Pentair which let you work from an iPhone or a proprietary panel or PDA, but you can't create a button to kick on the "1812 Overture", turn down the inside lights, start the waterfall and light the fire pit. - Without a published protocol spec the RS-232 or RS-485 interfaces are problematic for integration. - The Indoor Control Panel and the Screenlogic applications DO NOT SUPPORT any way to provide different levels of control for the "master" homeowner, wife & kids and guests or renters - The iPhone Application and the ScreenLogic remote application user interfaces cannot be simplified for the homeowner that just wants a minimal amount of control (Spa On/Off). The desires of homeowners are varied and all over the map. No one company or product is going to do everything. But, all of these objections could be overcome very simply by Pentair creating an open, web-based API which developers could integrate with. Pentair could maintain the safety and security of the system and would not need to be in the HA business at all. There are plenty of qualified people that can take on the custom work.