Hi All, I always enjoy the reports that Jim Shields makes to the group about what is in bloom as he grows so many things. He wrote: >Most Haemanthus bulbs have a tough time adjusting when uprooted and >shipped. This has not been my experience. Most of the time I prefer to grow bulbs from seed and I do have some Haemanthus coming along from seed from Doug Westfall and Rhoda and Cameron McMaster. In fact I am having my first Haemanthus bloom this year from seed grown plants from Rhoda and Cameron. Yea! I also purchased Haemanthus bulbs from Rhoda and Cameron and some from Gordon Summerfield, both from South Africa so from a different hemisphere. I have had uniformly great result from almost everything I got from Rhoda and Cameron. All of the Haemanthus have shown no setbacks. In fact some I purchased this spring have put out their second set of really healthy looking leaves and I'm not at all sure whether I should try to keep them going. When Cameron did his topic of the week on Haemanthus he said the southern rainfall species were more tolerant of moisture during dormancy than the winter rainfall species so I guess I'll give them water every now and then this winter. They look so good I hate to stop watering. The Haemanthus humilis 'Giant' is living up to its name and growing rapidly! This is especially meaningful to me since Cameron and Rhoda took my husband and me to the place where they found it to look for birds when we visited them in the Eastern Cape so I have a mental image of Cameron swimming across the river in search of seed on the high cliff on the other side and swimming back with his precious cargo. http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… if you want to see Cameron's pictures of it. The Haemanthus I got from Gordon were winter growing species and they have all sprouted so seem to have turned around and are now growing when they should be. Some of the other Amaryllids I got from him are showing no signs of life so I have no idea if they will make it. The Brunsvigias are doing the best after the Haemanthus and I see small signs of life in two of the Gethyllis pots. Strumaria and Hessea plants may not have made it. I have an extremely different climate that Jim Shields which may explain my different experience. Mary Sue Mary Sue Ittner California's North Coast Wet mild winters with occasional frost Dry mild summers