First a big thank you to David Pilling who has apparently found a way to make the list work by moving it. It no doubt took a lot of time and effort. We are grateful for all the Pacific Bulb Society volunteers, but David especially does so much trouble shooting for both the list and the wiki. Diane's comments about her disappearing Erythronium and Jane McGary's recent topic of the week about hardiness of plants have prompted me to post about this amazing year. Until this year California was in a multiple year drought. In Northern California we had an almost average amount of rainfall last year, but this was mostly because of a couple of big storms that deposited a lot of rain, at least where I live, and not regular rainfall. This year has been much better with above average rainfall and scattered throughout the rainy season although we didn't have much from May on. We recently had a good rain however, something that rarely happens in June. It's hard to predict what the future will hold. It has been said about bulbs that they often stay underground waiting for the right conditions to grow. This year I have continually been surprised to see things flowering in my garden that either haven't flowered for years, never flowered, or that I don't think I ever planted out. How the seeds made their way to those spots who knows. I have had to stop and think, what is that and how did it get there? A number of years ago I planted some Cyrtanthus brachyscyphus out after Andrew Wilson admired it planted in Santa Barbara. This is an evergreen species and I had my doubts about this being a good idea and with my dry summer garden that was the last I saw it until I saw some orange flowers this spring. But the biggest surprise was to see the blue flowers of Pasithea caerulea from Chile. I kept it alive in my raised beds in pots for a number of years, but have seen no sign of it for many years and how it made it in the ground I cannot fathom. There were Lachenalia blooming in a spot far away from any pots I spied one day and an Ixia that I thought was long gone. This has been the year of the Watsonia in my garden and in other gardens and along the road verges. Unfortunately there is far too much Watsonia meriana (var. bulbillifers) this year . No fire, but good rainfall must have made the difference for those species that don't flower every year. Not to be outdone, those plants that are easy to grow and have the potential to take over have also done really well so for months I've had flowers: chasmanthe and freesias, then sparaxis and romuleas, followed by homerias, ixias, and babianas, then tritonias, and now Gladiolus species and hybrids, late flowering Ixia and Tritonia species and my natives: Toxicoscordion, many species of Triteleia, Dichelostemma, Brodiaea, Bloomeria. And this has been the best year for Calochortus flowering in a very long time. At times my garden was a riot of color (and now a lot of drying leaves.) I guess the moral to this lesson is that plants you thought were lost may not be. They may just be waiting for the right time. Mary Sue _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…