Dear All, People subscribed to this group so we could talk about bulbs in the broader sense and growing them and I'd like to get us back on topic before we have a mass exodus. It seems like there have been a lot of weather extremes in the last few years and I'm interested in knowing how people are coping. There have been droughts, floods, colder than usual weather, warmer than usual weather. Are people losing plants or finding some grow better? I live in coastal northern California, but on a ridge in the mixed evergreen forest and usually we have rain and a lot of it between sometime in October and November and May with it dry the rest of the year. The months with the most rain are December, January, and February and after that it tapers off. Storms usually start north and move south, but this year they aren't getting to us. And the tropical storms from the south aren't coming far enough north either. We've lived here 20 years and it has never been as dry this time of the year as it is this year and we are in the first stages of voluntary water conservation. This is leaving everyone very worried as last year it stopped raining in February and we had bad fires in the summer. In addition to the drier weather we had unseasonably warm days for part of January as well. It has been beautiful if you don't think about how it is supposed to be. What this has meant for my garden is that things are blooming much earlier than usual. I am getting a sense of what it must be like in Southern California most years. Normally I don't have to water my too large collections of pots in winter, at least not those that get rained on, but not this year. We collect water from the roof, so I'm using that for now. It doesn't take much rain to fill our water barrels so am keeping my fingers crossed that before I've exhausted my supply it will rain again. Yesterday I did a survey and there were blooms in more than 100 pots with spikes in others. That's a bit unusual for January and there are quite a few things blooming in the ground as well. All three varieties of Tecophilaea are blooming. Some years they don't even come up until January. I've a lot of Romulea in bloom: R. crocea, R. sabulosa, R. luteoflora, R. flava, R. kamisensis, R. kombergensis, Romulea bulbocodium, R. monticola and something that has been well eaten (tag says R. subfistulosa alas since it is one of the more spectacular ones.) And there was a Galaxia that bloomed that I missed. I have several species of Cyclamen blooming in pots and in the ground and Narcissus both places as well. Ixia rapunculoides is falling over in more than one place and there are Crocus blooming in pots and in the ground. A few early Lachenalias are finishing and others taking their place. The Massonias are about done except for Massonia depressa. Oxalis in bloom are all my different obtusas, Oxalis purpurea forms, O. versicolor, O. depressa. Gladiolus caeruleus has been booming for some time and other Gladiolus like alatus have well formed spikes. The Veltheimias seems to have sent up more spikes than usual, but aren't quite open. I've had quite a few Babiana species in bloom for awhile, but two new species started blooming today. Leucojum aestivum which doesn't bloom consistently at the same time each year is blooming now. In the greenhouse a couple of Haemanthus are just about done, but I have several Cyrtanthus in bloom, one Phaedranassa, Canarina, and Tropaeolum tricolor in bloom. There is another Trop species that got away from me before I could train it properly and it is growing all over the top of the greenhouse. I'll have to use binoculars to see the flowers. For the first year in years Tropaeolum brachycercas (at least one) showed up. I wonder if I have missed it in the past and not watered enough since that first shoot was so tiny and thin. And all my yellow Ipheion-Nothoscordum-Tristagmas, whatever we are calling them, are blooming this year. One pot had remained dormant for many years. There is also a white Nothoscordum unidentified, but not the bad one, that has been blooming well. As for my natives I have these in bloom: Erythronium multiscapodium, Cardamine californica, Triteleia clementina, Scoliopus bigelovii, Calochortus uniflorus. It looks like a long blooming year for Spiloxene serrata that started blooming in December and was flowering today. And there is the first Scilla and a Hycinthoides blooming too and the first of my Delphiniums. Some of the flowers don't seem to be lasting as long as they usually do and some Oxalis have already gone dormant. I don't know if this will lead to a shorter season and if that will impact the blooming season next year or if since there has been more light they will been doing the necessary growing and it won't make any difference. Any reports from other parts of the world of successes and plants lost to the weather? Mary Sue