Hi I suppose it would be a good idea to introduce myself at this point. My name is Nico Holtzhausen, I am one of Mary-Sue's recruits on her visit to South Africa. My wife Jeanette and I live in Cape Town and we have been growing bulbs for about three years (at a very small scale). I would summarize our interest as follows: Firstly to appreciate the bulbs in their natural habitat and to be involved in their conservation, secondly to raise the profile of our indigenous bulbs locally by growing the hardier and commoner species in the garden (landscaping if you want) and thirdly to grow them in pots. Naturally, our focus is on South African natural species, mostly winter-growing, but also summer growing. One of the problems (from a landscapers point of view) with growing our winter-growing bulbs in the garden is their seasonal nature. Planting them on your lawn, which seems like a popular options among the members of the discussion group (maybe everybody is looking for an excuse not to mow the lawn?), seems like an elegant solution here. In Cape Town there is a natural white Sparaxis specie (could be Grandiflora, although the flower looks a bit too small), which does amazingly well at the sides of the roads and in parks. The plants are quite small, about 5cm in height, which seem to help them in their struggle for survival against the insensitive lawn mowers of the council. Just about a month ago, the lawn at one of the sites had been mowed, and right now they are flowering with enthusiasm in mass. A large flowered pink Oxalis specie is another low growing plant that provides wonderful displays on lawns in the Cape Town area. In the beds, there seem to be a number of options as to how to use winter-growing bulbs. Firstly, and the one that you will mostly come across if you read books about indigenous gardening in South Africa, is to use the bulbs in rock gardens. This refers to the waterwise part of your garden which gets no irrigation (i.e. only rain in winter) and which could also contains succulents and optionally rocks. In this type of garden, open soil patches in summer is quite acceptable. This is also the only way to landscape with plants that do not tolerate summer watering. Secondly, the bulbs may be treated as annuals, which imply that they should be removed (and stored for next season) at the end of spring and then replaced with something else for the summer months. Thirdly, they could be inter-planted with other herbaceous perennials or summer growing/winter dormant and/or evergreen bulbs. Kirstenbosch botanical garden (in Cape Town) has some wonderful displays on how these bulbs may be inter-planted. Watsonias and Chasmanthes may for instance be inter-planted with winter dormant or evergreen Agapanthus species. These are just some ideas on using winter-growing species for landscaping. Unfortunately, due to work and other obligations I won't be able to contribute regularly to the list, but I can assure you that I find it very interesting to read about the activities of bulb enthusiast elsewhere in the world. Nico Nico Holtzhausen Software Engineer FLEXTRONICS SA C301 Warehouse Building Black River Park Observatory, 7925 Cape Town, South Africa +27 21 4421240 main +27 21 4421279 direct +27 21 4421264 fax mailto:nico.holtzhausen@za.flextronics.com