Serissa is a very popular bonsai subject and you should be able to find it in the literature quite often. Ive pasted a link that might be helpful. Serissa is a plant that inspires great admiration and great loathing. It can be a bit fussy. They are easy to grow in warm humid areas, so So Cal ought to be a good place to try it.Here in Ohio it can be trouble getting them through the winter. Here is a link that might be useful: serissa link

Mystery Solved! I finally got around to cleaning up these beds this past weekend, hadn't cut last year's old stalks yet. None of these clumps is totally dead, I did finally begin to see growth on all of them, albeit a couple have just a handful of stalks, nothing like they were. The cause -- VOLES. Voles had chewed out a lot of the base of some of these grasses, leaving behind a fine debris. I found vole nests in a couple of the clumps. The way the voles did it, I couldn't tell from casual outside observation, but when I began getting into the clumps, it because instantly obvious what the problem was. They seemed to like to destroy the plant at the crown level where roots meet stalks, thus the lack of new growth in destroyed areas.

Per one of the plant answer people at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildlife Center, they don't like the heavy clay soil we have, not in the winter when it stays damp. I lost all of mine this winter and need to figure out how to amend the soil in that area so that they'll overwinter properly. They're fine through the summer and fall, but once winter comes...I guess the ground just stays too wet for them to handle. I'm not sure how, since I didn't water and all they got was rain, but they WERE at the bottom of a slight hill, at the edge of the sidewalk. I'm going to blame the December ice storm. :(

The salesman intially said the demonstration would take an hour. 3 hours later they were still at my house, convincing me to purchase this vaccuum. Dont get me wrong this was an amazing Vacuum!!! However the salesman had no concerns that i most likely couldnt afford this vaccuum. He had all these different priced plans, advising the price would normally be 3000.00, however he would bring it down to 2500.00 with fewer payments. He could see that i was still struggling to figure out how i was going to finance this vaccuum, He appeared to be making phone calls to head office to bring the price down and at the last minute bought it down to 2000.00 After calcluating the interest, it ended up costing 3000.00 anyway. My main problem with this is that it felt rushed. I couldnt find 3 forms of ID and desperately wanted him to leave after 3 hours and done a stupid thing like sign the forms just so they could leave. He didnt care that i didnt have ANY form of ID, he didnt care that i didnt know my bank account number, he advised as long as i purchased and signed on the dotted line, then everything else would fall into place. He advised he couldnt come back again as this needed to be done asap. They also took my old vaccuum with them. Everything seemed dodgy, and i had my kids running around hungry so i felt extremely pressured. After they left i sat down looking at this machine thinking what the hell have i purchased??!!! I looked around on websites like trademe (nz) and found other types of machines at the price of 500.00. By this time i was pissed! I immediately called headoffice and cancelled the order and they advised someone would call me to inform me of cancellation procedures. The next day after work these two guys came over again. (no call or notification to say they were coming) They were standing asking me why i wanted to cancel the machine STILL trying to convince me that there is no other like this. They even had the nerve to sit inside and say they called head office and they would lower the price another 200.00. I ended up telling them to take their vacuum and leave my house. I asked them where my original vaccuum was and they asked me what colour it was? I told them to leave and advised them to bring back my original vaccum or else i would make a complaint and slammed the door. 5 days later i still havent recieved my old vaccuum. This whole ordeal was a horrible experience for me and these salesmen were dodgy as!!! Never again