Walmart offered an interesting gamble this fall: big bags of mixed tulips for very little money. I indulged in two bags of mixed species and one each of lily- flowered and fringed varieties, which I've potted up in the hopes of being able to place them out of reach of deer when they're in flower. There's a chance that the descriptive terms "species", "lily-flowered", and "fringed" will be accurate, but it won't surprise me in the least if all the bulbs in each bag turn out to be the same - the varieties that the growers had too many of this year. I'm also trying, and not for the first time, the beautiful blue-eyed white tulip, "Tulipa pulchella alba oculata-caerulea", in the hopes of figuring out how to keep the bulbs from dwindling away as they have in the past. Fortunately, it turns out that one of the gals at a local garden center evidently knows a thing or two about keeping it going so it will form flowering size bulbs even though potted. Her advice is to use a sandy, somewhat alkaline soil and to feed halfway through the flowering period, then again two weeks later. Stay tuned next year for reports on success or failure. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Z. 7-8, cool Mediterranean climate