Dear Peter, Welcome to the group. Your 'must have' question could a desperate plea how to chose. You are gardening so close to an inexhaustable source of treasures that we all envie you. I hope that we will see you the end of august at the symposium (that will giveyou some ideas!) Kind regards =?iso-8859-1?q?Peter=20Kaye?= a *crit : Having struggled with the English climate for the first 30 years of my life (I have less than cherished memories of various greenhouses and the efforts required to keep them ventilated AND warm), I finally called it quits and 'retired' to Cape Town. > The house into which I moved had a lush but heavily irrigated garden, and after spending a year and a half trying to decide which part to sacrifice to create an area for winter-growing geophytes, I decided that even Brugmansias have rights when they reach 30', and promptly bought a plot infested with disposable eucalyptus in which to create an entirely summer dry garden. I have accumulated various genera to stock this (pancratium, paramongaia, brunsvigia, amaryllis, canarina, vagaria, lilium, agapanthus, oxalis, moraea etc) and hope to eventually include fritillarias and calochortus. I would appreciate any suggestions as to 'must-have' plants for mediterranean climates. -- Lauw de Jager BULB'ARGENCE, 30300 Fourques, France Site: http://www.bulbargence.com/ "GUIDE POUR BULBES MÉDITERRANÉENS": 116 pages, 400 photos, prix 10 E Expedition des bulbes à floraison estivale est terminé. Prochaine catalogue en juin Région: Provence/Camargue, Climat zone: 9a Mediterranean, dr y July-August, peak rainfall in autumn, minimum temps -3-7°C (28-21F) Reference vegetation: Arbutus unedo, Olea europeaea,