At 07:15 AM 6/28/2004 -0700, Jane McGary wrote: >I've certainly noticed different timing of emergence between bulbs brought here >in fall and the same bulbs a couple of years later, when they've settled in. In a USDA publication issued in 1926, David Griffiths wrote about the commercial cultivation of tulips in the US. One of his observations - a warning to potential consumers - was that tulips of a given clone grown in different areas do not necessarily bloom together. He had access to tulips grown at the Bellingham, Washington State station and tulips grown here in the Washington, D.C. area. If those bulbs were mixed in a mass planting, the result was irregular bloom. Griffiths speculated about the cause - at one point he believed it to be due to the differences in soil character, although he also suspected conditions in handling and other factors. Jim McKenney jimmckenney@starpower.net Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where I still have lots of tulips to dig.