porewit, et al: 1. I'm a firm believer in "right plant, right place". That is, San Diegans have a certain kind of soil and they shoudl stick to plants (overall) that are adapted to that kind of soil (heavy and neutral/alkline). The good news is, there are thousands of plants that fit that kind of soil. I think California gardeners, in general, make too big a fuss about the pH of our soils here. 2. Gypsum does not break up clay nor soils cemented together by iron oxide or calcium carbonate. Gypsum is used to break up soils that have no structure due to an abundance of salts (we call them "sodic" or "alkali" soils; not to be confused with "alkaline" soils). The gypsum replaces one ion for another (much as with water softeners) and allows such unstructured soils to develop a structure (flocculation). Our soils do NOT need calcium. 3. Sulfur doesn't really change pH significantly and it definitely doesn't work to alter pH over the long run. 4. The "tip": mulch (a verb). Mulching with a semi-decomposed organic material changes, at least subtlely, the chemistry of the soil and does, indeed, allow nutrients such as calcium and iron and other micronutrients to become available to the plants in the soil. Aside from choosing the right plants (see above), this is the best thing you can do for plants that DO need a slightly different soil chemistry. 5. Yep, some of our soils are high in potassium and that can be toxic to some plants. Not a lot of plants, mind you. A few special Australians. But again, it's all about right plant, right place. Joe

I do have a device on my tank, well one of the two lol. The one that does not have the device is the one on my loves office, and he lets it run out before saying anything. The new tank on my side of the house gave me the message to make the order. But it was a matter of 5-7 business days- so either Friday or after the weekend of Monday or Tues. I had the bad luck of falling into the end of Tuesday to be scheduled. Propane got delivered this morning and everything is running fine again. It was nice to see my usual friendly propane guy :) We have been using the baseboard heaters for almost a decade before finally getting a new furnace last fall for my side of the house. So a few days to cover while awaiting a fill wasn't too bad, the snow timing just sucked, lol. And that would have been fine except the snow blower not starting was a bummer.

Good morning, Sue, I always enjoy photos of your garden. You do a great job with placement. And I like that building in the background. Is that something you had built and is it a shed or intended for something else? It's attractive. All your bulbs are looking great. I need to try to add Anemone and every spring I vow to add more bulbs and then something comes up to prevent me from taking the time to install them, so I don't order them. Maybe I should start saying in the spring that I'm not going to add more bulbs in the fall. [g] Maybe that will work. If the wind is becoming routine and at your elevation is especially becoming a problem so you don't enjoy working out there in early spring, maybe you can change the way you work. And your garden plan a little. With the wind in mind, perhaps you can plan a windbreak somewhere and a sitting area or work area shielded by it. And clean up the garden more in the fall than the spring. Your garden is pretty so sitting enjoying the garden out of the wind might be something to look forward to in spring. Or a work area where you can start to put all your pots together for the season. As for climate change, I do blame all of our weather changes on that. And I agree, I'm expecting the weather is going to get warm too fast again this year. I was just thinking the other day of reminding my husband to get the a/c in the windows soon, when really I don't normally think about that until the end of May. But, I think what we all need to do is adapt as best we can. I'm grateful our part of the country seems to have it better than so many other places in the country. All the areas that are putting up with brush fires and worse heat, etc. It appears that little is being done to reverse climate change, so eventually we may have it worse than we do now. So, I'm trying to enjoy every minute of what seasonal weather we have now and try to make it work for me. When I buy more daffodil bulbs I'm going to be buying late blooming bulbs. And if we are going to keep having early heat, then I am increasing my planting of roses that enjoy the heat. I'm trying to notice what is responding well to changes in the weather and what is struggling and do more of what works. I know that doesn't amount to much, and really it's more up to nature to adapt and for us to observe and work with that.

I think you are over-reacting all the way around.