hi mrao, i have been able to propogate night blooming jasmine (cestrum nocturnum) without much effort. all u need to do is take cuttings of a decent size (upto 8-9 inches), preferably terminal, remove the leaves in lower 1+1/2 to 3 inches, peal to expose the cambium layer in this part soak in water for a couple of minutes, apply rooting hormone and simply poke this into coarse sand upto a depth such that remaining leaves stay above sand. cover this pot with a clear polybag or something such that it forms a small greenhouse of its own; this is crucial for quick results. mist it a couple of times a day after removing this cover. just take care that u have atleast a couple of nodes on the lower part of the cutting that u expose by pealing. wait till u c activity on the cutting. then repot in a different medium after pulling the new plant out of sand. almost any garden medium will do (not the coarse sand it was rooted in). best of luck with your jasmines. keep us posted. raghuvansh

I am 73 years old. Some 30 years ago, my BP started going up, and I was advised to reduce salt. I did it and monitored my BP every day, and watched it go down gradually but steadily. and it stayed down for a few years. Then it started climbing again, and I started taking anti-hypertensive medications. I now take two different such medications to keep my BP within normal range, and I watch my diet. Eliminating salt from your diet is very difficult because so many things contain salt. It's not just avoiding the salt shaker and avoiding salt in the food you cook. Most people do not know it, but milk, bread and most cold cuts and cheeses contain salt. Meats and fishes also contain some salt. The only things that contain no salt are potatoes, fruit and veggies, rice, grains, beans and unsalted nuts. You can accustom your taste buds to "like" unsalted food and, after a few weeks, you will find even lightly salted things too salty and wonder how you ever ate them. Depending on your personal situation, you might make life very complicated for the people you live with. If you decide to embark on this low sodium effort, make sure your BP elevation is not so high as to pose a serious risk, because you could do yourself harm if you do not get your BP under control promptly. Another thing to consider is that some people with high BP have a form of the disease that is particularly salt-sensitive. They respond especially well to reduced sodium intake. If your illness is not of that type, then you will probably eventually find that sodium restriction does not afford you the degree of BP control that you need, and you will have to start taking medication. Of you can try calcium supplements, but they can be constipating. The cheapest and for most people safest starting antihypertensive medication is hydochlorthiazide (HCZT), which is available as a generic and costs less than $20 per month. It's a very safe drug, and you will probably not experience any unpleasant side effects. Blood pressure control is one of the few areas where the drug industry has succeeded very well. The available treatments are highly effective and extremely safe. You will hardly know you are taking any medication, and the "silent killer" can be kept safely at bay.

Interesting thoughts -- we could all improve on paperwork storage in our homes. Two things I think I'm doing well that differ from the above mentioned Script, and someone else might find some ideas in my methods: Taxes. Yes, like Script, I am scrupulous about maintaining records for my taxes. About a dozen years ago I went to the office supply and bought two big boxes of BRIGHT GREEN folders (green like money). I labeled them Taxes 2000 ... Taxes 2001 ... Taxes 2002 ... Taxes 2003 ... and so on. Given my family's typical lifespan, I made enough green folders to take me to age 110 -- probably more than I'll need, but I'm ready! They're all stored in my file cabinet, taking up very little space. Now when I receive anything tax-related -- a charitable receipt, an end-of-the-year bank statement, whatever -- I have a place to file it. In April, I have a place to file a copy of my taxes, and I can go back and see previous tax years. For the rest of my life, this system is in place. Death folder. Ours is a notebook. Two identical notebooks, actually, since we have two children. Our girls are young adults now, but they've never dealt with an estate -- even if they don't open it 'til they're old, it'll be useful to them. It contains a lot of stuff: - A personal letter to the two of them - A list of our wishes about funeral and items we'd like donated to various family members or charities - A list of things they must do immediately; it starts with going to our house and taking possession of the dog, but it also includes small details like canceling our voting registration and destroying any medicines in the house. At every turn this list includes addresses and phone numbers, including the lawyer we suggest for probate, the funeral home our family's always used, and family members who should be contacted. - A copy our will; they know what's in it -- everything split between the two of them - A list of our financial assets -- bank accounts, investments, insurance, deeds/maps of real estate ... when our youngest became a legal adult, we made the two girls co-beneficiaries of every account; note that this was done before either was married, so our two kids -- not future son-in-laws -- will own these items. - A list of the bills we pay each month -- electricity, phone, even the guy who cuts our grass. - Official copies of our birth certificates, our marriage certificates, and the girls' birth certificates -- they might not be needed, but the girls won't have to scramble to find them - A flashdrive with all of the above in digital format plus photographs that might be useful in putting together the funeral Our rule: We keep two years of tax returns in the notebooks ... the reason being that someday an accountant will file our final estate tax return, and he or she will want our last two years of returns -- so every April we pull out the notebook, discard one old return and insert the newest ... so our rule is that every April we look over the notebook and update anything that's changed. For example, last year we changed bank accounts, and someday we hope to add items concerning grandchildren to the book. Our girls know that the notebooks are stored in the safe, and they know where the key to the safe is hidden, and they know it's labeled with a misleading name so that a thief wouldn't look at it twice. Last thought on this notebook: Though this project took us the better part of a year --- we kept remembering one more thing, one more thing that really should be included -- we didn't find it difficult emotionally. I suspect that if we were older and/or one of us were in poor health, it might've been different.

Back in the 1960's we were told to add large amounts of things like, greensand, rock phosphate, and granite dust to create a nutrient bank in our soil until research found that soils did not bank nutrients and excess amounts could wash out and create pollution problems in our water. The same was found to be true of large amounts of organic matter in soils, more was not better. I have found that different soil testing labs often use different numbers but as long as there is balance between them, the ratio of one to another, nutrient problems should not be seen. Advice should always be somewhat more specific, tailored to what is being asked and that is why I often ask questions of the person posting. "Add more organic matter" does apply if the soil organic matter is between 0 and 1 percent but may not if it is 6 percent. A number of people have made statements to the affect that they have 50 percent organic matter in their soil when most likely they mean they added enough organic material (what we add) and as the Soil Food Web works and converts that material into organic matter (the residual) that number will drop. While many use those terms, organic material and organic matter, interchangeably they really do mean different things. Keep in mind that many times what the soil test labs report about nutrient levels is from research done on soils with very little organic matter, ie. what is called "conventional" growing where synthetic plant foods are used and where excesses are more pronounced than in an organic garden. kimmq is kimmsr