Ina wrote, >I planted the Tecophilaea in a container in a mix of sand and pumice. >How often should these be watered. I like to go easy on the watering >but how do I know when it needs watering? It is not possible to check >more than 1inch down. This is always a problem when we grow bulbs in pots, especially if the pot is plastic (clay allows more room for error because of its permeability to moisture). A mixture of sand and pumice should hold moisture for some time in the fines of the sand and in the pumice itself. I check my seed pots, which are plastic, by lifting them to feel the weight. However, in regard to Tecophilaea, as long as the pot drains well, it can take frequent watering during its growth period from late winter to late spring (when, in nature, it receives snowmelt as well as rain), and then it can be left unirrigated until the next fall as long as it is plunged to the rim in something (e.g. sand) that will moderate its environment in terms of moisture and temperature. You should also top-dress the pot with some small pebbles or similar material to moderate moisture loss. Tecophilaea's storage organ is a corm with a white fibrous tunic that limits moisture loss very well. I think too much anxious emphasis is sometimes placed on how to water bulbs. Many of them tolerate quite a range of moisture levels, as is obvious in the many kinds that are flowering now in my rock garden and even the saturated lawn, having been literally thrown there when I was putting in the new garden and had baskets of mixed bulbs salvaged from the plunge material in the old bulb frames. The main thing I feel is important is that those from Mediterranean climates should never be hot and wet at the same time. Plunging pots and deep planting help prevent both overheating and desiccation. Jane McGary Portland, Oregon, USA