Dear Mark, Before I introduce the next topic tomorrow I'd like to thank you for your amazing effort on Allium both on the list and on the wiki. I suspect there may be people catching up on everything throughout the following week and more discussion to come. It is going to be hard for anyone to match your output for any other genus in terms of helpful information and photos you have added to the wiki. Over the years I have tried a lot of Allium from seed and partly this has been because of all those articles you have written in NARGS bulletins with your extraordinary enthusiasm. There has always been a lot of seed available of Alliums through NARGS and for a number of years (not the last two I am happy to say if Tom S. is reading this) if I didn't get my first choice I got a lot of Allium seed because they started with A and went down the list of my alternate choices. My success rate with this seed has been really poor. Except for the California species that I mentioned in an earlier post and a few others that I expect to bloom soon, with about 22 different things I have tried, perhaps I've gotten three to blooming stages. Some germinated and I lost them later, but a lot never came up. Many of the ones I have tried have been praised this past week. For some I expected I started them at the wrong time so now I can look at what the seeds look like for a clue. From an earlier comment I am assuming that some of them needed colder winters. But the other question I always had for the ones that did come up was what were their requirements for summer water. Perhaps I didn't give them enough water. I experimented with planting extra chives and garlic chives in my "dry" summer garden and they disappeared. I still have some in containers that I water regularly however. I could never have the glorious display of blooms in summer you showed us on the wiki. I'm not complaining because there is a wide array of material from Mediterranean climates that are quite happy in my situation and I love living in an area where I can hike year round (albeit in rain gear some days in winter). Besides the California onions that don't need cold temperatures to thrive are there other species you would recommend for those of us who have mild winter temperatures and dry summers that wouldn't escape into the wild areas like Allium triquetrum. On another forum I saved from Lauw his words: "A. christophii, schubertii, stipitatum , amethystinum, sphaerocephalon do very well here in our Medit. climat. Many Allium hybrids and Allium giganteum have been abandoned; as they all degenerate rapidly by virus infection due to our mild climate. Allium cowannii, triquetrum (of course), subhirsitum , zebdanense are all good 'stayers' here." Of these: Allium cristophii-started in spring, came up the following winter. Years later I still only have two very tiny bulbs Allium schubertii-started in November, germinated in January, failed to thrive as well Allium subhirsutum-never germinated >Allium zebdanense-started in October, germinated in March, did not survive >Allium amethystinum-I have some healthy looking seedlings now from a fall >sowing. What do I need to do to keep them going? Can you comment on Lauw's statement about Alliums degenerating rapidly to virus in mild temperatures. I am assuming the Allium that Alberto talked about was virused when he got it. >I bought some Allium acuminatum from Jane and I have two seedling pots >returning too so am hopeful that this will be another Allium from >California that I can keep going. > >Now that you have whetted our appetites are you going to donate some seed >of some of these you told us about to the BX next year? > >Mary Sue