Hi David, Here in Indiana, for many years I had excellent results with growth of Ismene Festalis, etc., just by planting them outdoors in the ground as soon as the ground was warm in late springtime and then digging the bulbs and storing over winter in my basement after the first frost in Autumn. I think that could maximize growth rates. An unrestricted root run may be very important to vigorous growth. When I have grown Ismene in pots here, they have done much more poorly in comparison. I gave up growing them in the ground because it was a lot of hard work. Best regards, Jim Shields At 12:25 PM 7/25/2011 -0700, you wrote: >Hi Jim,    Thanks for letting me hear about the progress of the >seed. My seedling is in its third year, but not yet ready to >bloom. From the looks of it, it may be several years before it will >be. I don't think it even formed a pseudo-stem last year.    It came >up late this summer â€" little over a month ago. ....... ************************************************* Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 P.O. Box 92 WWW: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/ Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA