Hi Nan, I've put some of my excess bulbs in the ground and they have grown. A number of them did well for years in a raised bed as well although the unusual year it got down to 19 degrees F. most were history. We saw hybrids growing in the ground in mass in Nieuwoudtville. They were very striking too. Where you live, I expect it would work just fine. You'll have to try it and report back. I've started adding a few more Lachenalia pictures to the wiki and am splitting up the page. So if you go to: http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… you'll see new pictures of Lachenalia alba, Lachenalia aloides var. vanzyliae which is a nice one with turquoise flowers, habitat pictures from Cameron McMaster showing the great variation of Lachenalia bulbifera, Lachenalia campanulata which is from a summer rainfall area, but grows in winter and is evergreen for me, habitat pictures of Lachenalia carnosa growing spectacularly in the rocks in the Kamisberg, Namaqualand, hairy leaves of L. comptonii, L. contaminata showing flowers and leaves and habitat pictures of the same from Cameron. I'll be working on some more additions. I think it is lovely having habitat pictures. This is a genus hard to photograph without a tripod however, especially if you want to capture leaves and flowers in focus. We took a tripod with us to South Africa, but didn't use it as there was so much to see we opted to see more and setting it up would have slowed us down. So I apologize for our pictures not being sharper. What I hope you can see from adding so many pictures is what Mark Mazer was trying to point out. There is much variation in all of the species. So growing something from a different seed batch may result in something that looks really different from that same species you are growing. My L. carnosa does not have spotted leaves for instance. Mary Sue