----f6d3b8d32537d47-- Hi Everyone, Pink! I had to think about that a bit. I usually lean more toward red, purple, and gaudy. I did like one of the pink cultivars of Hesperantha (Schizostylis) coccinea until it succumbed to the climate here. Can anyone recommend a hardier pink Schizostylis? I hang on to an old Gilbert Wild TB Iris cultivar, 'One Desire', because I like its salmon pink color. Friends gave it to us when we lived in Cleveland, Ohio, in about 1965. To get serious about pink though, I'd have to nominate the genus Nerine. Mary Sue hit this one squarely on the head! N. krigei is blooming here now, and some hybrid [filifolia X krigei] are starting to bloom. N. filamentosa is also close to flowering. I love the Nerine when they flower for me. I really enjoy the Cyclamen I have in pots, and their various shades and tints of pink are a delight to me. I just wish they would do better outdoors in the ground than they do here. My favorite Cyclamen is whichever one is in bloom at the moment. I think that a line of Clivia I saw at Monterey Bay Nursery, California, in March is going to be a favorite of mine: Clivia 'Pink Star' is a strain (a "group" under the new rules), developed by Mr. Luen Miller of MBN, in which the petals have a white mid line and a range of pink colors in the different plants. Terrific plants! I bought some of them at the time, just wish I had gotten more. Pink Wishes Among the pinks that I wish I had, I would include the Haemanthus carneus which Doug Westfall showed yesterday. They (H. carneus) just haven't done well for me in the greenhouse. I wish I knew how to grow H. carneus here! I like the pink Narcissus, but the ones I've gotten so far are not quite pink enough for me. Besides, they bloom when our weather is usually wretched and the flowers don't last long enough to get a decent picture taken. I wish I could find a pinker Narcissus that can take our nasty spring weather better. Siberian Iris 'Pink Haze' is not really pink, but it is as close as I've seen in the Siberians. 'Pink Haze' is also very slow to grow and almost impossible to propagate. Has anyone seen a good pink in Siberian irises? Jim Shields in autumnal central Indiana ************************************************* Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 Shields Gardens, Ltd. P.O. Box 92 WWW: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/ Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA Tel. ++1-317-867-3344 or toll-free 1-866-449-3344 in USA