I wasn't able to add a reply from the county forester right before becoming laid up with some health issues so it's a couple of weeks stale. But in it he acknowledged also recent deaths of live and laurel oaks, red maple, long leaf and slash pines, and red cedar. Still, no specific information regarding an absolute cause. Since then, I've been out of the loop. I reject theories of products such as fertilizers or herbicides based on the distribution pattern. It's been small pockets of trees (commonly 2-6) and they tend to ignore property lines. Besides, most of the situations I've seen are where one can just tell that these are not yards where anyone is spending 10c on chemicals of any kind. For example, the yard with 4 large oaks dying looks like an abandoned rental property. There's been no attempts to eradicate weeds there. Maybe it gets 2 mowings a year at best. Salt water incursion I would rule out for many obvious reasons. It's not a possibility. And we would have hear about something like that long before it got here. I haven't postulated any theory or made assertions yet as to the cause. Nor have I heard anyone in a knowledgeable capacity state a definitive cause. I speculate a disease or insect infestation that may or may not be affected by the recent lack of winter (our normal dry season) rain. There is talk of a beetle but I don't have enough details... certainly no confirmation at this point.

Following up, a few months later... Things seem to be back to normal in the garden (thanks again for all of the advice and support). Nothing dead, and even a few new creatures -- a toad (must've come over from a man-made garden pond nearby) and a bunny (an unpleasant surprise -- living in an urban area, this is our first rabbit ever, in four years!). Birds are plentiful, and we're seeing a few goldfinches come by as the coneflowers dry up. I spent the summer enjoying the garden mostly from the inside... next spring will bring a clean slate and I can stop feeling funny about being out there (and about being here). Interesting, though: Like Hyta, I had not one Japanese beetle. Not a one. And I didn't spray anything besides all-season oil for aphids. Saw this in the newspaper today about more dangers from imidicloprid, this time about lingering dangers to honeybees: "Unfortunately, we are learning that Merit has some ugly side effects, namely causing what has been called colony collapse disorder, where thousands of honeybee colonies are disappearing for no obvious reason. Now we know that any plant that is treated with Merit and has blossoms that attract bees, those bees will receive a non-lethal shot of Merit. But it will cause them to lose their ability to find their way back to the hive. It also weakens the bee's immune system so the bee usually dies of some fungus or virus. ... "We yardeners can't deal with the bee problem in agriculture, but we definitely can take a look at how we are using Merit in our own yard. Some of the most effective and popular systemic insecticides for rose bushes have Merit as the main ingredient. Honeybees will always work over rose blossoms and so are exposed to a little bit of Merit -- enough to affect them badly." Provided the link for those of you who want to read more. (P.S. Maryl, I made sure to spray my clothes each time; thanks for the tip. And Joanne, now you must forgive me. I never have any e-mails about responses to a post. Still, please accept *my* apology for not responding sooner to say it's no big deal at all. :) )

So. 1 Year in. Where are we? I am actually moving out of my house into an apartment. The apartment will apparently have significantly less sunlight, although I am not sure. My roommate got a "Top Fin" 30 Gallon Aquarium Kit from the local Petsmart, apparently they have a smaller kit that's just a 30 Gallon Aquarium and the Light. It's a single light, about 2 feet long -- I have to wonder if a similar kit would make a serviceable terrarium in an emergency. I split apart my two White Trumpets. The drainless planter they are in was killing them, their media stunk to high heaven. I instead got a second drainless planter and put a plastic pot in each one. This lets me pick the plastic pot out and check the water levels -- in essence, the drainless planters are saucers in this setup. Still, it works, and they still look nice. I repotted my D. Adelae, my Cape Sundew 'Alba', and my D. spatulata in a 7" plastic terrarium bowl that I have had laying around for a long time. I put too much soil in it, so I'm hoping to dig a little out -- and with the help of a little water to make it a bit malleable -- lower the soil level tomorrow. As it stands they're all right at the rim, but... I'd like them to have a little room to grow. The D. Adelae had a stupidly huge root system. It was growing in pure LFS, never repotted from the Deathcube pot. It wasn't doing too great, it was growing great leaves but it's dew wouldn't stick around. I am hoping a better environment will work. The D. spatulata was actually a colony of about 6 plants, I put two back in it's original container and 4 in the terrarium. No sense not keeping a backup. ;) Decided to steal one of my Monkey Cup's guest plants, a Cape Sundew seedling. It's now in the Terrarium too. If my Pygmys do any gemmae, I may sprinkle some in the terrarium between the other plants. Heck, once I have a better idea of my new living situation, I might just move those plants out into individual plants or a more traditional great big 7.5 or 12" pot and fill the plastic fishbowl thing with Pygmy gemmae. Speaking of Pygmys, I repotted mine about a week ago. Took my 2 Butterworts (P. moranensis and P. grandiflora) and my 2 Pygmy Drosera (D. pulchella x nitidula and my lone surviving D. scorpioides) and put them all in a nice big mix of Sphagnum, Perlite, and White Horticultural sand in a huge 7.5" pot. It was kinda scary repotting the pygmys, but I just took them out soil and all and plopped them on top of the soil in the pot, and worked them in. They did not seem to have the huge roots I associate with pygmys, for some reason. The sickly butterwort (Grandiflora, I believe) had stinky media, I think it was approaching root rot. It's very tiny, has died back to just 2 leaves half an inch thick. The other Butterwort lost a leaf in the move, but seems to be ok. It's odd -- wherever the leaves actually touch the ground, they brown up and die. As long as they're not on the ground directly, they're fine. The scorpioides seems to be happier, it has put out 2 or 3 new branches. I was worried because it was doing what it's 4 brothers did -- the tips of it's branches turn crispy and brown and never do anything, then eventually it spreads to the main plant. Similarly, I had lost some of the p. x n. but the majority of them have perked right up since being moved to the bigger pot. About when should I start looking for the signs of Gemmae production? And what are those signs? The main part of the plant swells up a bit and then I see green "peas" in the middle?

Fluoride is a carcinogen. No one denies this. Its risk of lethality is vanishingly small. The issue surrounding fluoridation of the public water supply is one of cost:benefit for the population at large. Personally, I come down on the side of mass-fluoridation but it seems to me one of the (few) public health issues where reasonable minds can disagree. This said after a lot of careful study of the problem. Since in the case mentioned by Pamela legislation isn't suggested, or mass-forcing of elders to install induction cooktops, the comparison isn't really apt. Learning about the safety benefits of the appliance, in particular conjunction with the needs of elders, is basically just a win-win situation (especially for the manufacturers! ;) ). And thanks, pamela, for pointing out this issue of fire-hazards. I hadn't realized it was so big. Frankly, I am guessing many of us middle-aged sorts on this forum are just beginning to learn about the issues surrounding our aging parents. Linking them to more plebeian issues of consumerism is an eye-opener. And for those of you beyond the divide (of middle age), couldn't you just take in a little bit of the love and concern considered here by your 'children'? There is, maybe possibly, a slight tradeoff to be affected between freedom and safety. But we who care about you place some value on the safety part perhaps at slight expense of the freedom-part. This is the stuff of negotiation, not excoriation. IMHO. Also, note that the anxiety surrounding the issue for many has its own 'cost' -- hard to quantify for sure. But it does belong in the cost:benefit analysis somewhere, not just the literal numbers of deaths. And that anxiety exists among all, elders and their children and gchildren too. It's a hard thing to tote up but really pervasive. I think that's at the heart (pun winked at if not originally intended) of Pamela's post, frankly.