I got it to work . What I did was select and copy one plant from the pool project and paste it into a new blank sketchup window. The edit functions somehow work normally in this new file and I selected always face camera etc. I copied the altered plant back into the project and all the plants then became editable within the original file.
Strange but it works

Thanks Pat,
I`ll give it a try

Ive discussed this issue and sent a model to the maker of the plants and they all work fine on the PC platform, it seems that the problem is with the mac permissions or something in this area. These are the best plants Ive come accross and you might want to have a look on their website http://www.cadplants.com where they also have a couple free sample downloads to use and play around with, also they have the information on the file type. I notice in your write up that you use vista so unless you also work with a mac platform you won`t be able to duplicate this issue.
Regards and thanks for your efforts

I tried that but when exploded the plant disappears leaving only a trace outline.
Thanks for the reply

I rescently added some .skp plants to my component library which load fine in my models but I can`t seem to be able to edit them to face the camera etc. After selecting them " in model " the edit dialog in the component browser shows all editable options grayed out or i.e. unselectable. I use mac os, with pro 6 and sent the file to a friend with a pc platform and he was able to perform all editable functions on the plants in the file without problems.
Can anyone help with this issue?
Regards