All this discussion about Makiko's Babiana rubrocyanea has encouraged me to share what happened to me this year with Freesia laxa ssp. azurea. I had tried growing it many times, always unsuccessfully. Gastil gave me some corms to try and last year I had wonderful results. The corms increased so I had an opportunity to replant in a couple of different ways. This subspecies starts in growth much sooner than the other subspecies, often flowering in winter. That may have been one of my problems before as I assumed I could grow it just like the red or white ones. I've been the opposite extreme to Leo in the past with high humidity in winter and low light when it rained a lot and a lot of South African plants haven't been very happy with that, even if they are from winter rainfall areas. Even sheltering them from the rain in the past didn't change the humidity. Even in my greenhouse with a fan going the humidity measured over 90% some years. California has been experiencing a drought and last year we had the lowest amount of rain during the rainy season in years and this probably contributed to my success last year. This year is still up for grabs, but between September and late December we had as much rain as the entire year last year. Since then nothing. The Freesia laxa ssp. azurea that was planted outside in a raised bed and was not sheltered from this deluge looks terrible. The leaves are brown and the flowers dropped off before they opened. Most of the other plants in the raised beds look fine, but there are a few also unhappy and some Oxalis in pots I didn't move out of the rain soon enough . On the other hand a Freesia laxa ssp. azurea pot that I had on a shady porch out of the rain where I had moved the Clivia (which experience has taught me is necessary) is blooming happily at the moment undamaged. Mary Sue