Hello Shmuel, Your strategies to keep plants in pots cooler are simple but effective, some are new to me. Thank you. Especially for bulb seedlings in pots I move them from a fairly sunny place in winter to a cooler and shaded place on the north side of the house once the weather warms up here in Portugal. Warm soil induces dormancy in winter growing bulbs and the longer they can stay green the better. It is also better to keep them in the shade during dormancy, especially small seedling bulbs do not like to bake in hot and bone dry soil. Your question about hardiness of Tropaeolum: T. tricolor is in flower now in my garden and has survived the hot and dry summer without problems. It looks most effective scrambling through juvenile cork oaks, either in full sun or partial shade. I would agree to the observation of other people in that it will tolerate/survive light frosts so it should be perfectly happy in Jerusalem. Can you give it the shelter of an evergreen shrub through which it can climb? Or a net or fine textured trellis on a north facing wall? I would think it is not happy on a sun exposed hot wall. T. leptophyllum sprouts much later than T. tricolor and should therefore escape the coldest weather. It may even be hardier than T. tricolor. On the other hand this may make it more vulnerable to premature dormancy because the onset of warm weather may induce dormancy before the growing cycle is completed. So shade and the coolest possible site seem an even more important issue for this plant. I planted mine in the shade of rosemary and hope for a nice combination of the yellow and blue flowers but I cannot yet report if that is successful or not. My Oxalis collection of which a lot came through the PBS gives me a lot of pleasure. Almost every day new flowers appear. Same for Lachenalia, a genus I am gradually discovering for myself as they do so well in the open garden. Bye for today, Uli _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…