Dear Jane, I agree with Diana about the mushroom compost. I used to use it in my vegetable beds and one year was out of other things and used it with a couple of pots of bulbs with disastrous results. Someone said it was the high salts. Regardless I haven't used any since. We get a lot more rain in our area than the one you described, but I have used a mix of 1/2 regular compost and 1/2 quarter minus fir bark to improve our basic sandstone, decomposed and still solid soil. A nursery man here who is a soils expert recommended it to mix with my soil before planting as he thought it would take longer to break down than some of the other suggestions I had. What they sell as top soil here I would define as silt. I think it has worked pretty well in the beds where I used it. Those beds weren't specifically for bulbs although there are some bulbs in them that are growing well. I'm not sure I understand why you think Mediterranean bulbs would be unhappy with composted wood products. I remember when Will Ashburner was here he thought some of the fir bark I had would be good to use to help create air filled porosity. He was giving the potting mixes available low marks compared to Australian standards and looking at what I had available. And he knew I was growing mostly Medit. bulbs. I found his quote from my IBS archives about what he used for a potting mix and he grew lots of Medit bulbs: "I have great success growing bulbs in a soil less potting media, made up of 80% different grades of shredded pine bark and 20% coco peat (shredded coconut husks). The latter was previously coarse river sand but was substituted to make a lighter (to lift mix). The mix has an air filled porosity of 15%. This is the key I believe, not so much the materials used but the physical characteristics of the mix." Randy Holbert lives in the area you are talking about and grows bulbs, but hasn't joined this list yet. I'll forward your question to him and see if he comes up with any things that worked for him. Mary Sue