Hi, Surprisingly, Crinum season has also begun here in central Indiana! One plant of C. bulbispermum, planted in the ground right outside the greenhouse, is in bloom. This is at least a month earlier than I recall in the past. There are some volunteer seedlings of crinums coming up in this same bed! I never thought a Crinum could seed around in central Indiana! I have lost x-powellii in this same bed, close to one of the small greenhouses (#2, to be exact). A Zantedeschia 'Green Goddess' is surviving in the ground outdoors at the south end of greenhouse #2, and nearby is a plant of Hymenocallis liriosme, coming up after its 2nd or 3rd winter in the ground there. Survival continues to be very good for most of my crinums. I have not checked the plants I gave to the Indianapolis Zoo yet, in the center of downtown Indianapolis; but here in the outer suburbs of Indianapolis, I have not noticed any major losses. One large Crinum variabile had the center bulb die, but numerous offsets survive. One large plant of C. [bulbispermum X lugardiae] in the same outdoor bed looked bad, but I think it is surviving. The other 6 to 10 large plants of these two varieties seem to still be there and to be perfectly healthy. Numerous 2-yr old seedlings of C. variabile were lined out last summer, outdoors in the ground near GH #4, and most seem to have come back. The C. variabile and the C. [bulbispermum X lugardiae] are outside the south end of the large greenhouse (#4), ca. 10 to 15 ft. away from it. They undoubtedly get some leakage of heat from GH #4 in the winter. However, this last autumn, we did not add any extra mulch to the thin layer we had down for weed control. I'm planning to try Crinum plantings farther away from buildings this summer, if we get the time. We'll try a couple hybrids of bulbispermum and some seedlings of C. bulbispermum. I had three bulbs from about 20 seedlings of [bulbispermum X macowanii] that survived outdoors in the ground. The three survivors were transferred to 5-gal. pots and will be used for breeding. I may risk a couple large seedlings of a macowanii X macowanii cross there. I have 2-yr old [bulbispermum X graminicola] to try, too -- if we get the time. Best regards, Jim Shields in central Indiana (USA) At 10:23 AM 5/2/2006 -0400, you wrote: >Crinum season has begun in North Carolina with 'Alamo Village' >and 'Mrs. James Hendry' blooming now. The x powellii and >x herbertii types should be along soon. >........... ************************************************* 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