Hi all, We have some Hyacinthoides (a nondescript mix of garden plants) and have had them for several years. I'll have to see how well they bloom this year, but they keep coming back. They are planted under rather heavy shade -- sugar maples and red oaks -- in bare clay-based woodland soil. Lots of leaves fall on them in autumn, but there are no other woods nearby, so the winter wind blows those leaves away. If the birds nest earlier and the trees leaf out earlier, I can hope that the spring bulbs will also come up earlier. This year, the long spell of very cool weather has bunched things up together. Jim Shields in central Indiana (USA) At 10:08 AM 5/8/2008 -0500, you wrote: >In the Chicago area we struggle with all of the Hyacinthoides taxa. They >survive for a few years (if we are lucky) and then disappear. > >Boyce Tankersley >Director of Living Plant Documentation >Chicago Botanic Garden >1000 Lake Cook Road >Glencoe, IL 60022 >tel: 847-835-6841 >fax: 847-835-1635 >email: btankers@chicagobotanic.org > >_______________________________________________ >pbs mailing list >pbs@lists.ibiblio.org >http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php >http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ ************************************************* 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