2011 Peonies III

Well you sold me on the sundrops! I sure love my stemless. May have to plant the sundrops around those yellow peonies I hope to purchase this summer! ~j

Ooh, I better watch it. Donna's gonna drive down from Raleigh and give me a good talking to (big grin).

I hope you enjoy your Raleigh visit! You got some fantastic weather this weekend, just right for rose & peony sniffing. NC is beautiful in spring, truly.

I snipped one Queen Victoria/Farmsted today for a vase. She smells up the whole living room, spicy and earthy, akin to gardenia but fuller. Yummy.

Note: the water bottle and bottles of acetaminophen and ibuprofen... my steadfast friends this time of year, ha. That's a fading Don Juan bloom next to her.

You guys crack me up. OK. The sky is the limit as far as color combination goes. But there's still no blue peony!

Rosemary, sorry to read about your DH's leg. I wish him a speedy recovery. Today was spent putting in the 2 garden beds that I mentioned on thread #II. They're both 20ft. long and 6-7ft; wide. Necessity is the mother of invention. I met with our guy that mows for us last week and had a specific conversation about having him and his guys take out the sod today, so that I could amend the soil to start planting my peonies this weekend. Of course, I waited all day for him to show up, and when my DH called him to see what time he was coming to start on the bed, he stated he had come to do it on Friday, but the beds weren't marked, and he was unable to do it today, because it was too late during the day. ;0(. So after I had a true tantrum, yes I still have those, LOL, especially when it comes to something that stops me from gardening, I went to Google University (joke) and researched how to make a garden bed without digging. I made my trip to Lowes, and got biodegradable landscape fabric, 10 bags of soil conditioner, 6 bags of Black Kow, and 10 bags of top soil, DH had to make a 2nd trip for 10 more bags of top soil, and I'm now the proud new owner of the 2 beds needed for my peonies and other plants. My DS helped lift some of the bags as well to the site of the new beds. Here's on of the beds after the landscape fabric had been put down, before all the other materials were placed on top. I'l post a picture of the new beds tomorrow.

Now onto blooms. Here's my bed of Bowl of Beauty.

Here's BOB with the clematis Duchess of Albany that's planted behing it.

This message was edited Mar 27, 2013 6:36 PM

Itoh Misaka bloomed as well today.

Closer view of Misaka's bloom in more sun, later during the day. I also liked the picture posted of Bartzella, GT, and Lemon Chiffon posted above. Where can I get Lemon Chiffon, and what's the plant habit like?

Here's Torch Song with the blooms finally opening. I've had these plants for 2 years, and this is their first year blooming.

Cem, love those blooms and beds! You have room in that new bed for a lot of peonies. A few weeks ago my DH and DS did move five cu yards of loam to fulfill my dreams, but you can scarcely tell now, my ground is so sandy. I love it that you can look over an expanse of green too.

I saw Lemon Chiffon on the A&D nursery site, but I think it's on others too. You might be ale to comparison shop by selecting peony under the sources tab on DG since it's pricey. It is a Reath introduction, so maybe you can get it from him too. I don't know about the habit, but in picture it is stunning.

Oh Cem, those blooms are gorgeous. It looks like you've got a big project there. My back aches a little just looking at it! I did a little search using the google university method (ha) and found that Adelman (peonyparadise.com) looks to have the lowest price on lemon chiffon. It is a gorgeous flower. Your Bowl of Beauty looks fantastic. I planted a small root of her last fall- good looking foliage this year but no blooms. Maybe next year.

Rosemary: I'm with you. I'm waiting for a true blue peony and a true blue rose. Wouldn't that be something?

I read an article recently about transgenic work with roses and other plants, splicing in bioluminescent material. Glow in the dark flowers are probably not too far away. I'm not sure how I feel about that...

Cem, you should be proud of those beautiful flower beds.. Absolutely gorgeous. I do my own mowing here and I'm getting to the point where I may get someone to do that for me.. Sometimes I run out of steam after mowing and blowing leaves. My beds would probably look a lot better if I had more time (and effort) to devote to them.

Thanks for the nice comments. The beds will be a work in progress. I'm not going to plant the Itohs till the fall, and I have 12 new herbaceous plants that I'll be putting into both beds for now. RG, bungalow and Rosemary, I've found muscles I didn't know that I had aching this morning. LOL. I've got a birthday, Mother's Day and an anniversary coming up. Hopefully I can get Lemon Chiffon and Bartzella. I've been in love with both of those plants and they're on my want list.

Yes, LC is pricey. Think I will start with my first peony, with Bartzella, at a much lower price. If it does well, THEN I will look into LC.

But oh my, how pretty it is! Heck, how pretty they all are!

Even daylilies are trying to get a true blue - they have blueish eyes, but not flower.

Yet. ~j

Wow Cem, love your beds. BOB and esecially Misaka are awesome, and I am going to look for the latter this fall....where did you get it? I was going to consider a transfer to Utah but some recent company structural changes are making that less likely so I will probably get to keep my house which means more beds and more peonies! LOL Rrrr I have my neighbors do my mowing and I pay them for it.....so all I have to worry about are the beds. Makes life a lot easier! I am not "old" but at 47 and a very demanding and busy job which requires some travel, I do not always have a lot of energy left for the yard.

Phill I think you will love Bartzella and find it a vigorous grower and a keeper. Expensive also when bought from a reputable source but worth it.

Bungalow love your flower in your vase :-)

Rosemary you will have to keep us updated with what you plan to do with yoru newfound peony obsession!!! Hope your DH gets well soon.

Hi Steve, Misaka came from our local Nursery, Pikes, and was grown by Monrovia. If you go to the Monrovia website and put your zipcode in, it will give you the closest nursery that sells their products. Annette

MY first peony is starting to open!!!!! Its a NOID, But that's fine with me. I'm just so happy to finially get a bloom.

Here is Big Ben in full bloom.

I think this Mme de Verneville is going to be my favorite. The fragrance on it is INCREDIBLE! Smells like the old musk rose.

this is a no id my hairdresser gave me. It's very pretty, but hardly any fragrance.

Thanks cem for the informatrion :-) I will follow up on the Monrovia selection.

Marti, congrats on your first bloom - exhilirating, isn't it???

Lili, your blooms are just beautiful. Wonderful pictures you've taken to capture them! I have Big Ben and Madame de Vern. and both are awesome peonies. M de V's fragrance can't be beat and Big Ben is just perfect in about every way, one of my very favorites.

Thank you Steve. Big Ben is so pretty! It's just the right combination of deep but bright pink and cluster in the middle and open petals on the outside. It looks like a pretty large flower but I held it with my hand and it's really not that big - medium size, compared to Sarah Bernhardt, whick I think it's pretty large when fully opened.

You're welcome Steve, and I'm glad that you don't have to move and leave all of your plants and your wonderful garden that you've worked so hard to build. Lili, your blooms are beautiful. I've got a young Mme. de Verneville that was put in last year, which has no blooms this year, and another peony that was planted several years ago that I believe is Sarah Bernhardt. Here are the blooms which are about to open.

Cem- that looks like my Sarah too. She's got loads of buds about to pop any day now. I'm going to take some pics tomorrow.

Here are the garden bed pictures as promised, the brown edge is the biodegradable landscape fabric. This is the left bed

Very cool!

Bungalow, I'm glad for you, I can't wait to see these blooms. These plants were from a box from Sam's planted in Spring of 2005, and bloomed for the first time last year after I put them more shallow than they were originally planted, since they had never bloomed. Here's the right garden bed. I've placed some of the plants to figure out where I want them to go.

Thanks lovemyhouse, and here's Baroness Schroeder that sits at the top of the right bed. I have 3 plants of Feather Top planted at the top of the left bed that were planted last fall, but no blooms this year. I will move some of the FT into the expanded bed in the fall to give them more room to grow, since they're planted too close together now.

Closer view of the Baroness blooms. I was about to post BS blooms but didn't think that would go over well, LOL ;o)

Beautiful pictures, thank you! Makes me impatient and a little jealous here in zone 4b where all my perennials are just now showing signs of life! I have planted 30 new peonies in the last two years, 11 two years ago and 19 last year. That rate of increase doesn't bode well for this year:-) Of the 11 planted last year eight bloomed so I am anxiously awaiting this year's efforts. Today was a red (or maybe pink) letter day as all the peonies on our property have now shown some pips. Yippee! All of your spectacular pictures are helping me decide what to add this year. Definitely want White cap and Do Tell but as the saying goes, a little too much is enough. May have to bite the bullet and get one of those beautiful yellows! Hopefully I will be sharing pictures with you from about June 15th onward.

okcrow, our bloom season will be over when your's begins, so we'll have bloom envy when we see your posts. It's like it extends all of our bloom seasons by being able to see all the blooms that come in from the different zones. I'll definitely be looking out for your pictures.

cem9165 - after adding the amendments to the top of the biodegradeable cloth, what is your planting depth? Are you just planting on top of the cloth, or cutting into the cloth and the lawn below it? I have about 90% of my lawn out now - using a combination of methods. I started my project to get more space for planting peonies too. You have some lovely blooms.

Hi soils, where have you been???

Have missed you.

And thanks for the question to Cem; I was wondering the exact same thing!!

Me too, because I was going to dig a new planting bed yesterday, and I like the sound of that biodegradable garden cloth even better ~j

There has to be more to it than that :-) Obviously Cem knows what she is doing and grows great plants, but much of TX has the same hard, nasty soil that GA does even if it is a different color - and cannot imagine just placing a fairly shallow bed on top of the soil's surface, sod and all, and expecting it to flourish. Maybe dig holes where you intend to place the plants and amend locally rather than the whole bed? That way the fabric would keep weeds and grass growth at bay in the areas not planted.

Hey everyone, sorry, long day at work. I'm planning on digging into to soil below the biodegradable landscape fabric, and getting the peony eyes just below the amended soil surface. I'll have to remove the grass in the areas as I go along, and Steve is correct, it would take me forever to amend the entire bed as they're both 20 ft long and 6-7ft. wide. The soil conditioner, topsoil and Black Kow aren't deep enough, and the plants wouldn't be anchored if I just left them on top of the landscape fabric. It will take the grass under the fabric several weeks to die and eventually it will be easier to plant in the beds as the fabric also degrades and becomes a part of the soil. I did spray the edges of the beds yesterday with weed and grass killer to give them a more defined area, and as you can see above in the posts, I've also got several inches of pine straw on top of the beds that will also degrade and help amend the GA clay soil.

Last of the peonies. I have a few left, but most I have cut and put into the vase.

Oooohhhhh!!!! So pretty LiliMerci

Thanks for the clarification Cem! Makes perfect sense now and best of luck with your project.

Lili, what a fantastic bouquet....great season's end arrangement!!

Here is my peony that I believe is Sarah Bernhardt. Side view.