Hi, Members ConroeJoe wrote >Yet, Silverhill seeds is quite confident that the Lachenalia species they >offer will endure temperatures to 20 F, or lower. They rate them zone 8 hardy, >and are clear and confident in their ratings if you email them. Perhaps >Silverhill has taken time to get seeds from higher elevation materials? I do trust >their general evaluation of their materials. First, I don't mean this as a criticism, but it appears to me that Silverhill rates hardiness based on their own experience--exactly what you want from a catalog, rather than over-optomistic offerings from some other catalogs. Some examples: Kniphofia rooperi Z9 (Thompson and Morgan lists it as Z7)--I have seedlings of this, and they were apparently unhurt by this winter, which I believe got to +19F. Kniphofia uvaria Z8--the common "red hot poker", and as such far hardier than Z8. The Pfitzer hybrids were raised and selected in Germany, for instance. However, it has been hybridized and selected so I kon't know exactly how hardy the species itself is. Zantedeschia aethiopica, Z8--common white calla lily--has been grown here in Z7 for longer than I've gardened, and there is a selection (Crowbourogh--sp?) that is supposed to be hardy at least to Z6, possibly to Z5 with protection? So, my assumption is, although Silverhill rates their offerings accurately according to their experience, some of them are certainly hardier. Silverhill can't be expected to give information they don't have any experience with. The challenge for the rest of us is to find out just how hardy things are, and find hardier individuals of various species/hybrids, of things which are not reported to be hardy. To paraphrase Tony Avent, "We need to kill plants at least three times ourselves, before we know it isn't hardy". This will take time, and enough plants available to experiment, and the courage to accept the inevitable losses. We then need to share these hardiest individuals of the various species. Certainly, there are many such plants we still have to find. Ken Z7 western Oregon USA