Hi all, I've enjoyed a nice Haemanthus bloom season the past month or so. Besides the drop-dead easy Haemanthus albiflos, I've had blooms on some Haemanthus barkerae, and first blooms on several H. coccineus. There was even a bloom on one H. crispus. The H. barkerae are unique in that only one of my three separate batches of barkerae seedlings has bloomed so far. One bulb of the oldest batch of barkerae is now showing signs of trying to bloom, even though it is barely one inch in diameter. I crossed barkerae and coccineus both ways. The berries are still only a few, and I'm not sure how many seeds I'll get. I've seen that blooms that I did not hand-pollinate have not formed berries, so I'm pretty comfortable with my crosses. Cyclamen are blooming, and should continue for another month or two. Three bulbs of Nerine bowdenii "Koen's Hardy" are ready to bloom. My bowdenii usually do not flower until December, but they are relatively early this year. I hear from others that they usually get bowdenii flowering in October. That makes me wonder why mine usually bloom so much later. Nerine platypetala is also blooming now. It usually blooms this time of year, so I winter it over in the greenhouse rather than stored under a bench like most of my summer-growing Nerine. My first fall-blooming daffodil of the season this year is Narcissus serotinus, which appears to have set a couple seed pods. The other Narcissus in the greenhouse are still mostly dormant. Moraea polystachya is blooming after a long summer dormancy. It's pot was set outdoors in the spring, since it didn't grow last winter. Even though we had plenty of rain here during the summer, it did not start to grow until the weather finally cooled off a bit a few weeks ago. My few surviving seed-grown Androcymbium melanthoides finally bloomed this summer, but I've tried three separate times to grow Androcymbium pulchellum from seed. The first b athc produced Massonia depressa. The second batch, Polyxena ensata. The most recent batch, Lapierousa pyramidalis. I'm still waiting to see a real Androcymbium pulchellum. What else is new in the bulb world? Jim Shields in 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