Hi, For those of you who are interested, Uli is nearing the end of his trip to see the flowers in California in this exceptionally wet (in Southern California) year. So far he has visited Lee Poulsen twice who has helped guide him, gone to Death Valley, Anza-Borrego, and Antelope Valley to see the wild flowers, visited Quail Botanical Gardens, some cool nurseries in San Diego, the Huntington Gardens, and UC Berkeley Botanical Garden. Yesterday afternoon he arrived at my house and we went to see the wild flowers at Manchester State Beach and I showed him my favorite local private garden, that of my friend Jim Thompson in Manchester. Today we'll do the Sonoma coast special places as we have time. Tomorrow he is off to San Francisco and the Botanical garden there (Strybing). He has seen a lot of flowers and a lot of different areas. I find it wonderful as always to meet in person someone I've only met through email. Friday he'll be going home to Germany. Mary Sue