I hardly buy any book full price either - love Amazon, Abe Books, etc. Plus I love antique gardening books (some I found on that auction website). Ying, do you know about the Chinese garden being installed at the Huntington Library & Gardens? There is no estimated finish date - it's open when they're done, LOL. I'm sure you can see some of the plans on their website. I'm very excited about it.

Miguel, I asked that same question in the past few years for the same reasons. What I seem to remember was that the montanas and the atragenes don't seem to cross with the other types. Grey-Wilson's subgenus Cheiropsis, section Montanae seems to be a closed loop in terms of crossing from what I've been able to find (the Hull database shows no crosses outside of it, though there are crosses within it, such as C. chrysocoma x C. montana var rubens). Likewise, the his Atragene subgenus seems to be closed as well, crosses I can find only exist within it (fauriei x sibirica, etc.). I've not troubled myself with some of the subgenuses since they're not hardy here (like Meclatis), but there are plenty of examples on the web, in the Hull database and in other places of crosses among the large Flammula and Viorna subgenera. The Tubulosae subgenus crosses with itself, and there are successful crosses with the Flammula subgenus (x jouiniana is C. heracleifolia var. davidiana x C. vitalba, for example). I have a large list of less obvious successfl crosses I've found evidence of (fusca x lanuginosa, for example). If you'd like the list, email me and I'll send it to you. I think the person who told me about montanas and atragenes not crossing out of their own subgenus might have been Paul over in Gardenbuddies. Let us know what crosses you do come up with, though!

Rosie- at first I thought you meant she created a figure of a person using the altered hymnal as the body. Minnie- to me, altered books are a form of collage or assemblage art. The hymnal istelf becomes a new work of art by the artist adding paint, decoupage, stamps and other items to the pages. She used the topic of each hymn to inspire her when she added images. I think it is lovely! Although I am surprised at how nicely the pages look. Hymnal paper is so thin it can't take much added wet media unless she put something else behind the page as a backing. I just did a collage for an art journal round robin, and used a page from a hymnal as part of the background with watercolor paper as a base. Karen

beginner's eye, "...your assuming the person apologizes and accepts your apology. what if they don't. is that the fault of the parent as well..." I'm going to take....fault of the parent out of this equation and provide another example here. Perhaps a non-apology was given. I have an older sister, who I'm estranged from. She was given to periodic calls out of the blue. Usually, she would rage at me, criticize, judge, etc. Sadly, she just could never connect to my feelings. The point is that it was all about her and her feelings. I got used to her negative judgments and criticisms. She was very aggressive, although I'm convinced that she never saw herself as an aggressive person. She always framed me as the problem. Once, at the urging of some therapy group she decided to make another call. By this time I equated all phone calls and every interaction with her as emotionally painful. As charastic of her, she demanded to know why I avoided her. My sister could never, never see how hurtful her behavior was. EVER! Then she said to me, "...If I apologize, will it make things better?" This took me by surprise and there was a long history of her emotional outbursts, anger and denial. I responded saying I guess so. Then she got mad. Then immediately after she made another very telling comment, she said,"I DON'T GET ANY OF THIS." I was in therapy at the time and discussed her non-apology with my therapist and why I felt it was insincere--it was a very telling comment to me. She was apologizing for behavior that she didn't UNDERSTAND, because as she said, "She didn't get any of this." Neither could the rest of my family and the rage, anger and blame continued from them. My response was to distance myself even further. The concept here is that if someone truly doesn't understand how hurtful and destructive their behavior is (and will not own it and don't understand it), then I'm certain that the behavior will continue and there will be repetition. This may not be the best example, but think of a wife-beater who abuses his wife, then profusely apologizes with flowers, gifts and she reconciles. Then he beats her again, even more cruely than the first time. Then her well-meaning friends or relatives say, "she allowed herself to be manipulated, abused," or they may encourage her to "forgive and forget". Plenty of people MINIMIZE emotional abuse and the damage it creates, because unlike physical abuse you can't see it, therefore if you can't see it, it must not exist. I can assure you my estrangement from my sister is NOT TO PUNISH her. It is 100% about PROTECTING MYSELF and PROTECTING my emotions. It is not because I do not want "...resolution/reconciliation/closure/healing". Of course, I want that. I also want change and I want her destructive behaviors to STOP. I want her to demonstrate AWARENESS and I want to be convinced that she UNDERSTANDS why she is apologizing. I'm not interested in prolonging the conflict. I'M NOT INTERESTED IN PROLONGING EMOTIONAL ABUSE with someone who DOESN'T UNDERSTAND my feelings. I am also not looking for perfection of character. Responsibility and awareness, YES. That is what I am looking for. My intest is in preserving some sense of myself and protecting myself. I posted on another thread about the Art of Apologizing.