Thanks, Mike, I live in Jerusalem Israel - climate like the San Fernando Valley and winter rain, dry summer. >We've both been spectacularly >successful in a couple of years and totally unsuccessful the rest of the >time. So we're missing something. >I sometimes wonder if this might be a species that prefers to get a tiny bit >of moisture during the summer. I strongly believe that dew plays a bigger factor in xeric environments than is usually acknowledged. I leave bulbs in their pots and lightly sprinkle when dormant. Not enough to reach the bulb, but it does get the soil humidity up. I do the same thing for dormant cacti and succulents and it usually works well. With bulbs I don't have enough experience to really tell people to do it, I'll see how my Chilean bulbs come out this winter, though the Atacama has a lot more "dew" than South African areas.... Shmuel Jerusalem Israel