Hi Chuck, I too collect Hippeastrum species & live in California, but I’m up in the Sacramento area so there are some climate differences compared to you. Still we are hot and dry in the summer and cool and wet in the winter, although it only very rarely drops below freezing here. In my experience the biggest challenges to growing some of these species outside is dealing with the extreme heat in the summer and extended periods of heavy rain in the winter. I keep mine in an extremely basic greenhouse that consists of just a metal frame with a tarp over it in the winter, and then in the summer I remove the tarp and replace it with an aluminet shade cloth. My plants are not enclosed at all in the summer, so you could say I am growing them “outdoors”. I find that by using misters under the shade cloth I can raise the humidity up to about 30 or 40% (in the middle, right under the misters) but that’s about the best I can get. They tolerate this but during the hottest periods of the summer, when we get temperatures well over 100 for sometimes two weeks at a time and humidity levels in the single digits, they do tend to show signs of stress, but they always recover in the fall. Some species like to be drier than others so you have to be careful which ones are directly under the misters or some will get too moist. This brings me to the second issue. I find that if I do not keep my Hippeastrum very dry in the winter they tend to get stagnospora really bad & rot. Covering the frame with the tarp accomplishes this and the only water most of them get from October to March is from ambient humidity which is very high here in the winter time. I also keep them on raised benches with fans blowing above and underneath the benches. Some are especially sensitive and I have to treat them with fungicide from time to time. There is a great degree of variability between species in terms of how they will tolerate these different conditions. I have around 40 to 45 different species so I have had to come up with different ways to satisfy them all, which is the tricky part but also one of the fun parts for me. I hope some of this information is helpful for you. Take care. Chad Cox in Elverta CA Sent from my iPhone Chad L. Cox, Ph.D. _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net>