Hi, Janos, good to hear from you; we have not heard from you in a while. Last fall I did a little experiment. I took two nice fresh healthy bulbs of Fritillaria imperialis which had already initiated root growth and put them in small zip-lock plastic bags with a barely damp piece of paper towel. My initial motivation in doing this was to preserve the roots until I had a chance to plant the bulbs into the garden. But as it turned out, those bulbs went through the winter in the little bags. The bags were put outside in a protected place to allow exposure to the cold. Sometime in early March I finally planted those bulbs into the garden. They grew well and bloomed although they were not as tall as some I’ve seen. And they went on to make good bulbs. This suggests to me that this species does not need much water in the autumn or winter – or at least it can endure with low water levels. In general, I think a lot of bulbs don’t need much water except when they are in active vegetative growth. But if they don’t have it then, they suffer. Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.03871º North, 77.09829º West, USDA zone 7 My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/ BLOG! http://mcwort.blogspot.com/ Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org/ Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/