I hope that members who are in California and similar areas will be able to help me with this problem. I've been offered the opportunity to plant a long border at my brother's place in the hills between Monterey and Salinas, California. I want to use a lot of bulbs and dwarf shrubs, as well as shrubby penstemons and other drought-tolerant plants of low stature. The native soil is called "decomposed granite," but it contains a high proportion of fines and dries to bricklike consistency in summer. Native bulbs in the neighborhood include Calochortus, Triteleia, Bloomeria; I have also seen Dodecatheon clevelandii there. I don't think we can establish our nursery plants in it without amending the soil, and digging down deep enough to plant bulbs in it would be a painful proposition, so I want to prepare a more amenable planting medium. I consulted "Soils to Grow," a local firm offering soil amendments in that area, and all their expert could recommend was various kinds of composted wood products, which in my opinion are dangerous to Mediterranean-climate bulbs of many kinds. He says they have no other products that will loosen this type of soil. There is no local source of true leafmold that is not contaminated with salts and heavy metals, he says, and the mushroom compost available locally is also contaminated (he says). The ground pumice I'd apply here is not available in that area. The border is 800 sq. feet, so buying little bits in bags is not an option. What options to I have to rotted fir bark and sawdust -- which I know will attract bulb-destroying fungi? Help! Jane McGary NW Oregon