Hi, Since I grow mostly winter rainfall bulbs, I'm coming to the end of the time for blooms as I expect we won't have any more rain now until October or November. This has been the driest year since we have lived in coastal Northern California, but we were lucky to have more rain than usual in May which is when the rainfall is usually tapering off. We had a period of good rainfall then, more like January or February. It didn't seem to do a lot for the spring wildflowers which were missing the usual rainfall earlier although we had a reasonable if not quite as good as most year's show. But this late rain has seemed to be a good thing for the bulbs which bloom later. When out hiking there have been patches of Brodiaea terrestris in such great quantities that sometimes it is hard to find a place to step. And I've seen some Triteleia peduncularis is places I didn't know existed before and there has been a lot of Triteleia laxa. There seems to be a great variation in the color and height of the local populations of the latter. For months and months Iris douglasiana has bloomed in mass. Now we are moving into Lilium maritimum and Lilium pardalinum time and I'm happy to report that the deer haven't eaten all of them in the wild yet! Something else is taking a nip at the buds of the Liliums I'm growing in the ground and in pots. Even though the flower is small I'm very pleased that Lilium parvum is blooming for the first time from seed sown October 2007 thanks to advice about how to get them to bloom sooner provided on this list from John Grimshaw. http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbslist/old.php/… For a number of years I've been planting cormlets of various Brodiaea and Triteleia in my yard without seeing many signs of them, but this year there seems to be patches of Triteleia laxa all over the place. Triteleia ixioides, T. hyacinthina, and Triteleia bridgesii are about done, but Triteleia purdyi is starting and Brodiaea elegans, Brodiaea jolonensis, and B. californica are in full bloom. I've first bloom from seed from Brodiaea stellaris which I had lost and Brodiaea minor which is well named. I've had reasonable bloom from many of my Calochortus (always a cause for celebration) and a first bloom from Calochortus clavatus var pallidus which is gorgeous. I'm not very good with the southern California species so don't know if it will come back, so I've been visiting it a lot to admire it. http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… Other than that, the last Cyclamen repandum is fading, my native Alliums have also bloomed well and still looking good are Allium falcifolium and A. dichlamydeum. I don't have Rodger Whitlock or Mark McDonough's luck growing Alliums in the garden. Most disappear never to be seen again, but I can grow some of the California natives in containers. This year I flowered a non native one in my raised beds (in a container in a container) that I had been growing from seed started in October 2002, Allium subvillosum. That's a long time to wait for an onion. http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… It was a tall stately lovely flower. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the form for the wiki. Hopefully it will bloom again next year so I'll have another chance. I have some late Ixias, Gladiolus, and Tritonias finishing and the weedy Aristea and Orthrosanthus in bloom, a couple of South American Oxalis and a pot of Rhodohypoxis is blooming too. I have quite a number of Dierama plants in my garden and they are just opening. I've a few more blooms than usual from the Alstroemeria Roy Sachs gave me. I've concluded I need better soil and more moisture for them to thrive, but they must have liked the late rain. But I'd say the star of the garden right now has got to be a low growing hybrid Gladiolus. http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… It probably is a named cultivar, but no one has told me which and it combines nicely with Triteleia laxa. I've planted them all over the garden and they are really making a statement. Those late rains encouraged a lot of the non native grasses and other invaders in the wild and they are taller than I've even seen which is a bit scary after last year's fires. Mary Sue Mary Sue Ittner California's North Coast Wet mild winters with occasional frost Dry mild summers