Great post, Debbie: I hope we hear more from you in the future. While we on the East Coast can look to California and the Pacific Northwest for inspiration, we have to look closer to home for down-to-earth advice. Texas might be half way across the continent, but we get (eventually) your weather. The climate and weather down there in Houston and the conditions here in Maryland have a lot in common. The pattern is basically the same, although our winters are longer and colder and your summers are longer and hotter. And I can definitely relate to the living death plants undergo during that period when daytime temperatures are high and nights don't cool off much. It's an extra season we share, something no one who has not lived through it can imagine. When I was in the Army forty years ago I was stationed in central Texas (nowhere near Houston) for a full year. I remember it as one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. The late winter-early spring wildflowers were wonderful. Several times I got to see summer rains bring up overnight fields of rain lilies: amazing! I wonder how many of us are toying with these south African irids: there's a goldmine of things to work with there. Some Freesia, Babiana, Sparaxis and Watsonia seem to thrive in my cold frame. Little Freesia viridis - almost a glad - is loaded with buds now and should bloom any day. These give me great hope that one day I'll be telling everyone about my glads, too. Do you grow any of the neotropical tigridioid irids? Or for that matter, the native Texan ones? My cold frame is home to one each of Gelasine and Calydorea and others. Cool plants, all of them. Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.03871º North, 77.09829º West, USDA zone 7, where Magnolia stellata is in profuse, potently fragrant bloom. 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/