Arum Italicum is a good plant for dry shade. It grows lush in my shady beds in the woods where it gets little or no supplimentary water, even in the heat of summer, but it is dormant then anyway. I think too much moisture would probably rot it. I've never grown it in a pot, don't know how successful it would be for the long run.

Thanks katkin. I should have been more specific. I am not interested in annuals, they are too much work. I am looking for bulb and perennial plant combinations that give year round interest season after season. I'd love to hear about good or bad experiences people have had with arum italicum - anyone growing it here?

I thought I'd update the situation here on the Central West NSW frontline. Quite by chance, I adopted from last winter the strategy suggested by Katherine D immediately above. As I enter the second winter of the campaign I am finding a lot less plants coming up and because the soil in the flower beds has been turned over lifting the plants complete with corms is straightforward. One thing I have found is that the plant is extremely resilient. As I dug up arums last winter I put them into used plastic animal feed bags which I left out in the sun. Over the summer we had +40 deg C days and low humidity and in my innocence, I thought that would do the plants and corms in. Come the late autumn I started burning the contents of the bags in the fire pit and lo and behold there were corms sprouting happily away. And even after exposure to the flame, they had to be in the very hot part of the pit to ensure their destruction. One final note: our local Agricultural show here in Canowindra is held in spring. In fact it is more than just sheep and the big money local crop, lucerne, there's a horticultural section too. Taking in the prize-winning exhibits last year my eye fell upon one "highly commended" potted specimen, a ''beautiful'' arum. I wrote to the PA&H Show Society to complain that they were encouraging the cultivation of a noxious weed and a threat to pastures. They acknowledged my letter. It remains to be seen if they can the class for arums this year.

I'm not much impressed by arum. I planted five arum bulbs four years ago. The spot is shaded except for a couple of hours of direct sun. The clump has survived, but it has not increased in size. The leaves resemble those of calla lilies. They die back mid-summer, then new ones emerge in early winter. I've never seen a bloom or red berries. I've wondered if it might do better in a different location, but it looks good enough where it is, so I leave it alone.