Howdy All, I find that Tigridias grow here for me in Canberra, Australia brilliantly. No problems, worries, fusses, care or problems <grin> The hybrid "Jockey Caps" with their floamboyent flowers stay permanently in the ground, multiplying quite happily and on ocassions seedlings have popped up. I have a pure white with no markings, white with red markings in the bowl, classic orange with dark markings in the bowl and a red with dark markings in the bowl.... all of which survive in the ground permanently without ANY care at all. I think I also have some theoretically yellow seedlings coming along as well. I ahve harvested seed from my white with red markings and they germinated fine, I have a feeling I may have donated some to the BX but I honestly can't remember for sure. Maybe I just gave them away to friends <grin>. In the last couple of years I have also started with some of the species and have found them VERY rewarding with their much more delicate flowers, but in striking colour combinations as well. I think I'd have to say that Tigridia vanhouttei is my favourite of the species so far as it has 1 inch more or less yellow flowers with strong purple veinings and markings. T. chiapensis is predominantly white, T. dugesii is a glorious golden yellow, T. multiflora is an interesting almost brick-red colouration with smaller flowers around 1.4cm wide or so, and T. durangense is a teeny tiny little thing that is extremely easy to miss (or it was in my garden) as the plants are only a couple of inches tall with mauve 1cm flowers that are strongly reflexed. I also have a couple of other species that have not yet flowered for me. The species I take a little more care of than I do the hybrids. I grow all of the species in approximately 7inch plastic pots in a mix that is half sand, half potting mix. This gives them excellent drainage which I have been told they require and they've done well for me so far, increasing quite well in some species. I have had some of the bulbs out of pots dry during late dormancy at times but generally I never remember to do it. I do make sure that in these pots I repot them every year though as I want to make SURE that I preserve the drainage for these. Having said that, a year ago I had a large outbreak of a soil-borne fungus that obviously came fom a bad batch of potting mix. I was mortified at one point to find mushrooms growing out of a number of my pots and one checking further I found that the soil was now a completely solid mass of almost water repellent white firbes. Even though in growth I actually repotted a couple of the Tigridia species but didn't completely remove all soil as I didn't want to shock them too badly. They did not seem to be at all bothered by the fungus as it turned out, nor for that matter the repotting, and at this dormancy all bulbs looked healthy when I repotted them. I still felt better having at least TRIED to deal with the fungus. I have just made sure to keep up the sand content since then and the fungus does not appear to have returned in the new mix, even though there was definitely some of the fungus in the soil around the roots when I repotted. Maybe the sand content has helped ward it off? So basically I have found them all good and hardy, and absolutely no more of a concern than any other bulb I have. I have certainly not had to fuss over them nearly as much as I expected to, and they have not been bothered by year-around watering of their pots (we've been in drought a few years now so pot watering is essential) and I have lost none of the species to rot as yet. I feed them with "Bulb Food" which I use for all my bulbs and they seem to have thrived. Despite the increased sand content I still use "Saturaid" to help to keep water penetration of the soil at a maximum. Nothing special really in comparison to any of my other bulbs. So I am not sure whether anything I've said here is going to be of much use to others as I haven't really found anything different about their culture. They tend to seed easily, and seed have germinated well for me (I have seedlings now from vanhouttei and chiapensis that are doing fine with all my other seedlings of jsut about every other genus in existence (OK, I'm exaggerating a little <grin>). So I suppose to me I find that these guys are all-in-all a no fuss genus that rewards with flowers VERY well each year. The species are less flamboyent than the hybrids but are just as showy in their own way. Definitely all of the Tigridias are WELL worth the effort to grow. Hopefully Rob H can respond here as well. Many of mine originated from him and he likely grows a few more species than I do. His conditions are also quite different to mine climate-wise (particularly rainfall etc) so he may have some experiences that may be more useful to you all? Cheers. Paul Tyerman Canberra, Australia. USDA equivalent - Zone 8/9 mailto:ptyerman@ozemail.com.au Growing.... Galanthus, Erythroniums, Fritillarias, Cyclamen, Crocus, Cyrtanthus, Oxalis, Liliums, Hellebores, Aroids, Irises plus just about anything else that doesn't move!!!!!