Dear All, I really enjoyed two talks of Michael Vassar's that included discussion of Pelargonium and Oxalis. When he led a topic of the week discussion on Pelargonium a number of years ago I concluded that I should probably give this one a miss since most of them occur in areas with very low rainfall and he seemed dubious about whether I could succeed. But then when Dirk Wallace and I were swapping seeds he threw in seeds of Pelargonium incrassatum and suggested I should try it as it was especially beautiful. So of course I had to. I got very good germination, but lost a lot of the seedlings in the first dormancy. I gave some others away and they too may have succumbed. I was left with two. I have had a hard time keeping them healthy in my climate. The leaves get diseased. Last year however it sent up a couple of spikes and I got to get a sense of what it might be as the blooms shriveled. In the new Pelargonium book it suggested starting this one later so it would be likely to bloom later which in my climate would probably make sense. This year I potted the two I had left in a much deeper pot and put the pot in the center of my covered structure (open air benches with a roof that reduces the rainfall except when it rains sideways which Diana Chapman will confirm happens in our climates) thinking it would be more protected in the middle. And I watched it closely removing any leaves that look diseased immediately before the disease spread. Both plants have been blooming for some time now and they are gorgeous. I have had many flowering stalks. The stalks are too long, probably seeking more light, and Bob captured the picture of one of them that had made its way to hang out with a Lachenalia contaminata now in bloom. With this success I have gotten bolder and now I have two pots of seedlings from Silverhill Seeds of two more geophytic Pelargoniums I admired when we were in South Africa. I have started a wiki page and when I have time may scan in a couple of slides of ones we saw in the wild. I found it very challenging to get both leaves and flowers both in focus when I was taking pictures then and the flowers are these plants are a long way away from the leaves so only the flowers are pictured. http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… Thank you, thank you Dirk. Mary Sue Mary Sue Ittner California's North Coast Wet mild winters with occasional frost Dry mild summers