Rimmer first asked me about his seedlings since I donated the seed to the BX. The couple of times I visited South Africa I saw a number of species in the wild in bloom. Most of the ones I saw were growing in areas that were quite dry in winter even though that is when it rains. During dormancy it would also be quite warm. I was able to get seeds to germinate and grow and even get a number of species to bloom (obviously if I was able to donate seeds), but like Lapeirousia this is not a genus that I can grow well. I speculate but don't know for sure that perhaps my summers are too cool or my winters too wet. Plus I have a lot of trees in my yard/garden and I think probably a lot of things need more light. I'd think I'd lost most of my Cyanellas and then the rare years they would come up I'd wonder what they were until they flowered. So I suggested to Rimmer that he ask people who grew this genus successfully for advice about how to grow it. We've discussed before wondering why some of the plants we grow choose to stay underground and not sprout. That would be a good research project I think. I've had better luck with some plants moving them to my greenhouse when they are dormant so they will have a warm dormancy. When we built our greenhouse I thought of growing vegetables in winter, not using it as a storage area for dormant bulbs in summer. We've been having dryer years and California is having a very serious drought this year. When we first moved here there were a couple of El Nino years when we had more than 100 inches (2540 mm) of rain during our rainy season (it's completely dry from some time late May-June to September-November.) Last year in a drought year we had only 41 inches (1040 mm). This drought would be a deluge for some of the dryer areas of Namaqualand. This year thanks to some recent storms we're now at 16 inches (406 mm), way below our normal amount. Even that is more than some of those areas in South Africa get many years during their rainy season. Our hills are just now starting to look green. On the other hand some things that I haven't seen for years are blooming. It hasn't been colder than usual here. We've only had frost on our roof a couple of times. But there has been a lot more light since it hasn't been raining or overcast/foggy as much as usual and we've had more warmer sunny days than usual. Nathan speculated that it was colder temperatures responsible for many species blooming earlier in California than usual. I wonder if it is just more light remembering that years ago when we had a thread of how long it took for plants to grow from seed that some of our Western Australian members got plants to bloom much more rapidly than a lot of us with longer periods of good light. Bulbs blooming for me this year that haven't been good performers in the past: Moraea ciliata, Moraea bipartita (which I moved inside so there would be more warmth to open the flowers which has led to new flowers almost every day for months), Lapeirousia oreogena, Moraea comptonii, Pelargonium echinatum (I'd get leaves, not flowers). The Oxalis have been amazing. And yes, it looks like Cyanellas hyacinthoides is up for the second year in a row. And many things are blooming early. Since we collect water from our roof and had rain in November and a little after that to fill our rain barrels and use grey water, we've been able to water pots. The sometimes up Tropaeolums I grow in the greenhouse are sitting it out this year, but Tropaeolum tricolor is blooming. Why did some of these like Moraea comptonii, Moraea ciliata, and Cyanella hyacinthoides choose to grow this year? I think Rimmer definitely needs to control the aphids, but his plants may also need more light and to dry out between watering. Mary Sue