Plants do have a way of keeping us guessing, don’t they Aaron? I don’t trust Arum in the open garden here (other than A. italicum and some close relatives), but I have a friend who gardens about 10 miles due south of here who is able to grow a wide variety of them in the open garden. Arum pictum blooms yearly for her in the autumn. Here in the cold frames I have AA. byzantinum, concinnatum, cyrenaicum, dioscoridis (several accessions), elongatum, hygrophyllum, korolkowii (which I think is actually cyrenaicum), pictum (two accessions), purpureospathum and rupicloa. Many of these came as small starts from Jane McGary, others are from my friend who grows them in the open. As the plants in the cold frame thicken up, I’ll move pieces into the garden to see what happens. But I’m not optimistic. For years a plant of A. dioscoridis struggled in the open garden here: finally it disappeared without ever having bloomed. I have a form of what appears to be Arum italicum which has nice balck flecks on the leaves; although the autumn foliage of this one is killed annually, new leaves push up in late winter. I would like to hear from anyone else who is growing them in the open. Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.03871º North, 77.09829º West, USDA zone 7 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/