Alberto Castillo wrote regarding Tropaeolum species: > Polyphyllum, incissum, and sessilifolium spend their winter > dormancy very dry under show. The zone would be U. S. 8, always > growing in a scree. Ten to fifteen years ago I bought a pot of T. polyphyllum and unwittingly planted it out in the open garden. My soil is quite heavy, and I am a low spot, so winter conditions involve standing water after heavy rains. Far from being scree conditions! The plant survived and is alive to this day, having gradually crept from the original site to a position under a nearby raised patio, a distance of perhaps a meter. This new site seems to agree with it very well: as long as it gets adequate sun (i.e. as long as I hack back the buddleia that threatens to take over), it flowers modestly, though not as luxuriantly as specimens I have seen in more suitable condition. I have even had viable seed off it, and am growing on seedlings in a large pot. They themselves may flower this year. I should add that my concrete patio is very old, has settled a great deal, and has large cracks in it; the tropaeolum comes up in the crack between the concrete slab and the low supporting wall. Although not a bulb, Nierembergia rivularis is worth mentioning in this context. I have it in the cracks in the patio, and it does extremely well there, flowering profusely for a long period in the summer. It seems that sites under a concrete slab provide some combination of temperature and moisture that agrees well with some otherwise tricky plants. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada "To co-work is human, to cow-ork, bovine."