What size are the animals you hope to exclude with the wire mesh? could some rodents get through this? Summer growers prefer the ground here because of the erratic conditions watering pots gives in Summer, many plants grow better in the ground, but they get mixed up and can be harder to control if they become weeds. Several of the genera you list have both Summer growing and Winter growing species, as well as arid growing and wet growing species. You will need to allocate beds to particular micro climates and try to manipulate the conditions in each bed to give appropriate conditions for the species in that particular bed. That said, a judicious bucket of water is often enough, and let the plants get on with growing. Nutrients are unlikely to be a problem unless you have chalk, crushed slate or some other difficult material for topsoil and your compost should help most such soils. With the climate I think you have -(do you have much summer rain?),you may find the sand and pumice gives the plants a very dry Summer, I think that you might want to use a fair quantity of organic material. Peter (UK) On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 5:59 PM, Gastil <marygastil@yahoo.com> wrote: > Last week I read with interest the advice on growing media for pots. > > What experience to list members have with growing in the ground? > > I am half done with my new raised beds: 12" tall, 30" wide, bottom lined > > with 1/2" 16 gauge wire mesh. > > My plan is to mix the existing loam with sand, pumice (the light kind), > and well aged, manure-free compost. > > I have sent off a sample of my loam for soil testing. > > These are the genera I will plant: > Aristea > Babiana > > Dierama > Dichelostemma > > Geissorhiza > Gelasine > Gladiolus > Ixia > Lapeirousia > Micranthus > Moraea > Nivenia > Onixotis > > Oxalis > Romulea > Thereianthus > Tropaeolum > Xerophyta > Seeing that list all at once I realize this is overly ambitious because I > expect these each have their own > ideal soil conditions and it will be hard to find one soil that suits all. > > I will divide the beds into several sections. Irrigation will be primarily > rainfall and irrigation with collected rain water. > > Where does one look up the soil and nutrient requirements specific to > genera such as these? > > > - Gastil > Santa Barbara, CA USDA 9b (sort of), Sunset 24 (sort of; plus frost), > cool-summer Mediterranean climate (Csb) > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ >