Hi Jim: I have been growing this little beauty for a couple of seasons now and , although I have yet to have blooms, the psuedobulbs have multiplied. Outdoors, I grow it in a pot with a very porous mix with the addition of some clay chips you can get for water plants and some ground limestone. After the weather gets cool in the fall, I bring them indoors to a sunny, cool windowsill where they sit until they go down and I then stop watering them, almost. They do get an occasional watering throughout the winter just to keep the mix from totally drying out. You may well be able to grow these in outdoors in MO. I quote Warren Stoutamire, of the University of Akron, Ohio Biology Dept., who successfully grows these and was so helpful in getting me on the right track with S. lingua: "Rand: I have grown Serapias lingua here for several years and the species is easy to manage. They are potted in fast-draining sand-soil mixtures with chunks of calcareous tufa in the mix and around the tuberoids. You can add ground limestone or marble chips to the mix if you do not have tufa. The clay pots are kept in a bright position and watered lightly through the winter. They flower after the other Mediterranean terrestrials have finished, when the days are long, warm, bright and pots dry quickly. They grow well in groups and withstand occasional drying out. If you grow Orchis, Ophrys and other such terrestrials you should have no problems. They tolerate temperatures from 35 to 45F at night without any problems." Best Regards, Rand >Dear Friends; > I just unpotted a Serapias lingua from Fausto Cen and found >about a dozen 'bulbs'- small sausage shaped pseudobulbs with a >pointed end still showing a 'string' of fiber from this year's >growth. > Does anyone have experience growing this terrestrial orchid outdoors? > > It is Mediterranean and I wonder if I keep it dry will it >grow outdoors? > > It has survived in my unheated cold frame over winter. > > Help? Jim W. >-- >Dr. James W. Waddick >8871 NW Brostrom Rd. >Kansas City Missouri 64152-2711 >USA >Ph. 816-746-1949 >Zone 5 Record low -23F > Summer 100F + >_______________________________________________ >pbs mailing list >pbs@lists.ibiblio.org >http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php