On 7 Oct 06, at 14:51, Alberto Castillo wrote: > ...growing [bulbs] in pots is a lot less satisfactory. Most of us > are witness of the same results. BUT, what the post was all about > from the beginning is that what makes pot culture insatisfactory is > the bonsai effect produced by small pots. And that by using really > big containers you can mimick free range conditions a lot. However, if you haven't room for BIG pots, there are still things you can do to ameliorate the situation. Based on my own experience, I'd single out these: 1. Protecting the pots from direct sun that overheats the soil. A simple wooden frame as high as, or slightly higher than, the pots will provide more or less adequate shade. 2. Plunging the pots in a bed of sand. This is especially effective with terra cotta pots because their porosity allows the sand bed to buffer the moisture level. Overwater and the sand soaks it up; underwater and the sand provides a backup water supply. (It may be that capillary contact via the drainhole is more important than the porosity of the clay pot.) A plunge bed also keeps the soil cooler. 3. Fertilization. In a smallish pot, there is a limited amount of nutrition available. Once it is utilized by the bulbs or leached out by watering, your bulbs are starved, growing in too lean a mix. It doesn't take a lot of fertilizer to give good results. I once had a number of 4" (10 cm) clay pots holding crocus seedlings, all neatly plunged in a sand bed. They sat for years with no flowers. I finally fed them with a low-nitrogen soluble fertilizer, just once during active growth, and next spring the majority flowered for the first time. I'm not sure what time of year I did this, but I have a dim recollection that it was in late summer, just as root growth starts. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate on beautiful Vancouver Island