It is a good time to sow bulb seeds. The various alpine garden societies have extensive offerings of bulb seeds collected in members' gardens, and many collected in the wild. The garden seeds vary a bit from year to year, but the real excitement comes when we see who has been travelling, and where. The "where" used to be specified: 1500 m alt on Mt. xx. Now the location is kept secret to protect the plants. Only members can have the seeds, but you can often check online lists to see if it would be worthwhile for you to join. Sometimes if you join now, you can ask for this year's seedlist. Seedlists are currently being mailed out. These alpine clubs generally include seeds as a membership benefit, though sometimes members must pay postage. There are usually close to 6000 types of seeds offered each year. The number of packets of seed each person is allowed is limited, and often one does not get all one's first choices. It's like a lottery. ( After trying for 30 years to get seed of one particular dwarf narcissus, this year I bought it from the Archibalds, and it has already germinated.) Alpine Garden Society http://www.alpinegardensociety.org/ Scottish Rock Garden Club http://www.srgc.org.uk/ North American Rock Garden Society http://www.nargs.org/ Ontario Rock Garden Society http://www.onrockgarden.com/ Alpine Garden Club of BC http://flounder.ca/AlpineGardenClub/ There are specialty geophytic clubs with focussed seed exchanges. Usually these clubs sell their seeds and there is often no limit to how many you may buy. It is often easier to get what you really want from these ones. Arisaema-L http://botu07.bio.uu.nl/arisaema/aeg.htm The Cyclamen Society http://www.cyclamen.org/indexCS.html SIGNA (Species Iris) http://www.signa.org/ The North American Lily Society http://www.lilies.org/ The RHS Lily Group has a new website http://rhslilygroup.org/ Their seedlist comes out in January and besides lilies includes other Liliaceae, and other bulbous families -- Diane Whitehead Victoria, British Columbia, Canada maritime zone 8 cool mediterranean climate (dry summer, rainy winter - 68 cm annually) sandy soil