Just my opinion, but I've grown a number of different species (they're really easy to grow in southern Calif.), and some are interesting, but nothing to write home about, while others are spectacular, either in color or form or both. I love all the different forms of L. aloides because they're so colorful and floriferous and easy to grow. A few others that I think would do well and be admired by everyone in any flower bed if they were more hardy and less mediterranean are L. contaminata, mutabilis, rubida, bulbifera, and of course viridiflora. (There are other really cool ones too, but these seem to be the most commonly available ones that I've seen and grown for a while.) The ones like the aloides clan, rubida, viridiflora, and bulbifera all have larger "petals" or florets or whatever they're called, and they're all vividly colored. So to me they are very showy and impressive potted flowering plants, so I like the ones that Brent and Becky are offering that are in this style as well. (There's one that I think of as a "yellow bulbifera".) But the one that I find the most impressive of all is the one that looks like a purple/lavender/violet bulbifera. I don't know what species were crossed to produce these colors because I've never seen any of the species that look like it. I wish one of the species did look like it. Since there isn't one like it, I feel no shame in growing this particular hybrid along with all the pretty species forms. --Lee Poulsen Pasadena, California, USDA Zone 10a On Oct 24, 2006, at 3:49 PM, carlobal@netzero.net wrote: > Judy, > It may go without saying, but if you intend to bring certain pots into > the house....don't plunge them! None of my lachenalia are plunged and > so far (let me look for something wooden) things appear ok--and they > are perfectly portable. > Is anyone growing the hybrids that Brent and Becky have been offering? > What do you think of them? I usually try to stick to species (just to > keep things somewhat under control), but have a couple of these coming > to play with... > Carlo