I have to say that my experience with A. blanda is completely different from Jim McKenney's, and neither lime nor a dry summer explain it - quite the reverse. I live near the southern shore of Lake Ontario, in a classic snow belt area (10-12 feet/3-3.5m per year, on average). Both the beautiful rich blue A. blanda, and 'White Splendor', have been established here for - oh - 15-20 years? the blue ones self-sow everywhere, like crazy, ad nauseam, etc, and they've picked up some genes from 'White Splendor', so we now have some large pale blues as well - sort of a pity, as no one is ever going to edit the population, and it will gradually become more and more mixed. Our soil is slightly acid, our summers are not dry (that's why the South Africans do well here). So what's the secret? I don't know, but it may be the cool, moist winter conditions that obtain when you have several months of reliable snow cover. In any case, these things are in the grass, in the pachysandra, and all over the garden... Ellen Ellen Hornig Seneca Hill Perennials 3712 County Route 57 Oswego NY 13126 USA http://www.senecahillperennials.com/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim McKenney" <jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com> To: "'Pacific Bulb Society'" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 11:55 AM Subject: Re: [pbs] Spring Anemones Anemone blanda is one of those plants which at first seems to do well in our gardens. The plants persist for a few years and even seed around unobtrusively. However, they are best not regarded as permanent residents: they eventually disappear.