Don't prune rhododendron or azaleas until after they bloom or you will be removing their flower buds. Then you can prune to control the height or to improve the shape. It is good to open them up so that they get good air flow. Don't prune them with hedge pruners. Usually little or no pruning is necessary. Here is a link that might be useful: How to grow rhododendrons and azaleas.

Renee, I love the texture created by the plants in the last photo (senecio, sedum and barrel cactus). Also, is that Japanes Blood Grass in the first pic behind the amaranthus? I've been tempted to try it, but I'm afraid it needs bog conditions, am I right? I don't have much space in my yard, so I recently (May '09) took out a huge swath of lawn and am now growing succulents. All of the plants are fairly young, with the exception of the pre-existing palms and shrubs. There are so many interesting succulents out there! The boulders are from a friend's property. They own some land in the Sierra Nevada foothills and they let us haul rocks over to use in our yard. He uses boulders in his valley home because we lack naturally occuring boulders like those. Here are some other pics of the succulent garden: This section has mostly aloes, with some Callistemon, leafy euphorbias and grevilleas to add some leafy textures. And this section has mostly Agaves, Yuccas, Furcraea, a Ceanothus and some ground cover manzanitas. The petunias are only temporary groundcover. Here is a link that might be useful: Feel free to browse through my photobucket album

RE: "Actually in organized tests of amending of planting holes using controls (blocks of plants without any amending) the less friendly portions were those amended." Can someone cite the authority for that propostion please? I have heard lots of people say 'controlled studies say not to amend soil when you plant a tree', and I'm sure there are studies to support that, but I'd jut like to read one. At some point "amending" could become replacing the existing soil entirely and if the soil is replaced in an area larger than what the plant will ultimately colonize with roots, then certainly that could be a better environment in some circumstances. I do agree that just adding some gravel or peat to the soil you just excavated and backfilling would probably do more harm than good, especially if you only excavate twice the size of the existing root mass. But what if I excavate an area 20 times that size, and instead of amending the soil I replace it with whatever soil is ideal for that particular plant? Did they try that in the study? I hope not because I planted a japanese maple in my front yard today and heavily amending the existing soil, actually my hypothetical was more accurate, I dug a gigantic hole and amending with composted pine bark and peat. I also planted several inches above the existing grade on a mound so hopefully that will mitigate drainage problems.

We are in the process of painting our oak cabinets now. I can post pics later (when I'm not at work) if you are interested. We are doing the work ourselves. LIke the previous posters have said, it is time consuming. We bought a house in foreclosure and gutted the kitchen. I found great cabinets, in a horrible pickled oak finish, at restore. There is some great advice on this forum, and we also found a good article on painting cabinets on the this old house magazine website. Here is the process we are using: (1) removed all doors and hardware--you have to fill in holes if you are changing hinges or knob position. (2) rub down with liquid sander/deglosser. This cleans and roughs up the finish. (3) Sand with 100 grit paper, vacuum, and wipe down with mineral spirits or tack cloth. Seems duplicative of step 2, but this what was recommended to us so we did it. (3) Fill in grain, and fill dents. We used thinned down MH ready patch and applied with a paint brush. This was much less expensive than Brushing Putty and filled the grain well, but not perfectly. (4) Sand with 220 grit paper, vacuum, and wipe down with mineral spirits or tack cloth. (5) Prime (we used instl-x stix, which was expensive and I don't think it worked as well as the much less expensive kilz or zinzer primers (6) Sand again with 220 grit paper, vacuum, and wipe down with mineral spirits or tack cloth. (7) Caulk all gaps on doors and frames. We found we had to sand a bit again after this step, which meant more vacuuming and cleaning. (8) Paint--we are using Ace Cabinet and Trim (we couldn't find cabinet coat in our area). This paint is good at concealing brush strokes, but does not coat as well as some other paints and takes FOREVER to dry. Not sure I would use again. (9) Sand(again!!) with 220 grit paper, vacuum, and wipe down with mineral spirits or tack cloth (10) Paint final coat. (11) let cure (about one week). (12) reattach hardware and hang We just finished step 8. So I am not sure if two coats of paint is going to be enough. Started step one two weeks ago, and we probably have another ten days to go with the sanding, painting, and curing still to go. Not a quick process by any means. Good luck.