They bloom in the spring. Then they are the dreaded Star of Beth that absolutely nothing will kill...well paraquat will kill it back 75% in one year, but who is licensed or wants to use that on their yard? Next spring they will start emerging sometime in Feb, when the ground initially thaws. I suggest you dig them out, taking surrounding soil with the bulb clump and disposing of it in the trash...not yard waste. If you don't get rid of it, you risk it seeding in your lawn, or it spreading as you move plants around, or even passing it on to some unsuspecting gardener when you share plants with them. The property here is infested with the bulbs and I'm sure you have heard me rant about them. Below is a pic taken in March of how the front yard here looks. All of the many darker spots in the yard are clumps of Star of Beth. What little grass I have hasn't broken dormancy and greened up. I have very little grass due to it being in competition with the Star of Beth each spring for moisture and nutrients. My pitiful yard.

Dear hopefulauthor, Is it "Weston's Innocence", another deciduous azalea? I got very lucky in finding it by looking at my plant on Greer Gardens' website, and seeing Weston's Innocence just a few photos down from it. It looks classic & elegant--would be a nice complement to star & confederate jasmine :D They have the 12-18" size available for $26. Mine is "WA State Centennial", a deciduous azalea(Mossman). Now it is maybe 18-24". I probably ordered the 8-12" last spring for $17. OG & hopefulauthor, i don't know the ph of my soil. i pull grass around it when i mow, but don't water it because it is supposed to be easy to care for and suited-- indeed created--for this particular climate, so on principle i wont pamper it. we've had rain here frequently until just the last month or so. it has shot up since last year, so it's doing fine in my opinion. it will make the most of all the rain we'll be getting soon enough for 9 months of the year, and shoot up again next spring, i expect. honestly i cringe at the idea of washingtonians watering anything besides potted plants, seems kind of pointless to me. we're never long from any rain. digging into the soil where i am i find moist soil close to the surface even this time of year. what really boggles is people who mow too often & fry their lawn, then water it frantically. very strange. but to each his/her own. Thank You for your replies & Best Regards, spazplant

Ludi, in lieu of flowers, should we send donations in honor of Radiant Star to the Ludi Adopt-A-Hosta Foundation? The blight is a stem rot, right at the ground. I discovered that the little orange balls can be hidden below the soil surface, at first, only later do they show among the fallen petioles. I am fortunate that I have in residence a very good chemist who helps with the confusing terminology of chemical products or diseases. He has a revelation about treating some things with the basic cheap ingredient of a very expensive OTC chemical to treat multiple garden disasters. When I understand what I'm writing or saying, I'll try to share that with you. Besides saving some money on chemicals, you'll be saving some plants--including hosta, but also others too. There is something you can do about the blight and other fungal problems with your garden. We will begin spraying the hosta pots (and shrubs, veggies, flower beds, etc) on a monthly basis for our area. But only my DH currently knows what the simple "solution" is. I sure don't. He is saving our Italian cypress using this method right now. He sprays the soil, not the plant.

Dry rootballs are often the result of textural differences between the soilless potting medium or claylike field soil the plants came from the nursery in and the soil on the new site. If the rest of the bed was moist with the heucheras only being dry then it was something like that - something involving the heucheras specifically - and not the overall conditions. This should have been apparent when these were dug and pulled apart(?) but heucheras specifically are prone to weevil larvae gnawing the roots off and leaving a sort of nearly rootless husk sitting on top of the ground, unable to keep itself turgid without diligent watering - and maybe not even then. The same thing is common here with primroses.