At 06:29 10/04/03 +0000, you wrote: >Dear John: > Don't. They will get frozen even in zone 9. The hardier is S. >tubiflora but always grows in frost free areas in the wild. >Regards >Alberto > Alberto, I too can vouch for S. tubiflora surviving frost for me here in Canberra. I am certainly NOT zone 5 as I think John was suggesting, but we get to -8'C here last winter and they are in a not-that-protected area that most definitely would have got at least -5'C frost last year I'd hazard. They are dormant during winter so there are no leaves to get damaged, and they were in a small pot which would have amplified the cold for the tubers, so in the ground they'd be much hardier I'd hazard. For those of you who don't know S. tubiflora it is a very pretty tuberous Sinningia. The flowers are white and look a bit like a streptocarpus but they are in pairs on long stems. I have just put a couple of pics up on the wiki at.... http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/… http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/… ent.JPG Another thing worth mentioning is that this species has quite a lovely perfume, particularly at night (as I found out when I took it into a plant meeting one night to show someone, and found out that it had quite a pleasing delicate perfume that wafted throughout the car). The tubes on each flower were around 10-15cm long, with the lip flaring to around 1 1/2 inches wide. Cheers. Paul Tyerman Canberra, Australia. USDA equivalent - Zone 8/9 mailto:ptyerman@ozemail.com.au Growing.... Galanthus, Erythroniums, Fritillarias, Cyclamen, Crocus, Cyrtanthus, Liliums, Hellebores, Aroids, Irises plus just about anything else that doesn't move!!!!!
