tufaenough - Your remark about tufa breaking every time you hit it with a hammer reminds me of the very first time I tried to make 'tufa - but the result was different. I'd mixed the dry ingredients - 1/4 portland and 3/4 peat moss I think it was - and then added about the same amount of water as if I were mixing ordinary concrete. It immediately soaked up the water so that all I had was a very dry-looking crumble. Not a bit like a concrete mix. So, I added lots more water & it got too sloppy. So I added more Portland. And then a bit more peat moss. And so on.... I then decided that the solution must be more Portland, so I added Portland until I got a fairly stiff mix. When I took the casting out of the mold it certainly felt lighter that regular concrete. Being curious to see how strong this Hypertufa stuff was, I hit it with a hammer. All it did was it made a dent. I tried hitting it with a sledgehammer. It still wouldn't break - all I got was a bigger dent. I still can't decide what the final proportions of peat moss and Portland were. Maybe it was 2 Portland to 1 peat moss........! Herb

Avalon, Nematodes DEFINITELY thrive in sandy soil. When I was a kid in Miami we had pure fine sand to grow in, and nematodes out the wazoo. Couldn't grow roses worth beans, until we tried some with the right rootstock (don't know which one it was--it was too many years ago.) We had one rose that did fine in spite of neglect and no telling what rootstock, or if it was own-root--one my parents called "Sweetheart" (and if I remember correctly it looked like the Hybrid Wichurana.) We also had problems with them in sandy coastal east central Florida. We didn't even bother to try and grow roses there. Between the nematodes and the disease problems, it just wasn't worth it. Of course, that was before we knew there were roses out there besides the fussy hybrid teas sold at the nurseries. Adding a lot of organic material helps, but with the high amount of air included in sandy soil, it burns up in a hurry. You might want to get in contact with rose societies in your area. They would be familiar with your conditions and could give you some good advice on if you have a nematode problem in your area and how to deal with it.

A little more update, here's my lovely H. limifolia w/ its current crop of pups (5 or 6). I have heard as Norma suggests, there are at least several different varieties of this. A few yrs. ago, someone gave me one in my C&S group, telling me it was a less common form (looked identical) & don't you know, I killed it quite fast (bummer & embarrassing). HoovB, Maybe it's time for us to talk swap. Got any other Haws, to swap or maybe Hoyas (I peeked at your Member Page, didn't see tradeables)? Am open to discussions, definitely!

Yes, I did mean the physical difficulties of a GD X Chi breeding. From what you say there is already a partial incompatibility in that a female Chi would require a C-section to give birth. I am sure a male Chi is willing but I don't know about the mechanics of such a small dog mounting a GD. Is that a common phenomena round your parts? :) You seem to think that somehow the breeders don't catch such instances. In that case, do such crosses end up being registered with the AKC as Chi's or GDs? I don't think your Mutt argument holds water. Most snakes are common garters but that doesn't mean other snake species don't exist that can cross breed with them. So it is not material whether most dogs are mutts or whether most mutts choose their own mates. It could still be that pruebreds could qualify as species even if there was enourmouse one-way genetic flow from purebreds to mutts. If breeders are indeed keeping their breeds genetically isolated then that is a isolation mechanism same as any other. Whether that is true or not I have no idea. Seems to me that for the most part it is true. They even keep registries of who the parents are. Whether Mutts are more healthy is also not material to my argument. Cheetahs are genetically inbred and not very vigourous but they still qualify as a species. Also note that inbreeding in and of itself is not the cause of genetic disease. The only thing inbreeding does is expose harmful recessives to natural selection. There are species which inbreed early and often which do not have problems (in particular termites). It is the fact that most species do not inbreed that allows harmful recessive genes to be prevalent in the gene pool. Breeders could weed these recessives out but they don't for financial reasons. It's expensive. Inbreeding can be a problem if one has a small pool of individuals and they become so genetically similar that there is no variation in their immune defenses. Thus a germ that is exposed to the selective pressure of getting around a single individuals immune system automatically has the correct attack strategy for the next individual it infects. This is one reason why "clone armies" are unrealistic. Even if you had a very healthy person to clone a germ would eventually arise that would decimate your army. Plant enthusiasts have already experienced exactly this type of situation. Monoclone fields can be more prone to communicable diseases. One named variety may have had it's defenses breeched and may be more prone to certain diseases than other named varieties. Especially when the named variety is vegitatively propagated.