2018 I'm in Love (Again!) with Tree Peony 'Fuchsia Ruffles'

Tree Peony 'Fuchsia Ruffles'
I don't know how it's happened, but yet another tree peony from Solaris Farms has stolen my heart! Last year it was 2017 In Love with Tree Peony 'Angel Emily'. This year it's Tree Peony 'Fuchsia Ruffles'. Purple is most definitely my favorite color, and this tree peony has quite a bit of purple. It is a lovely, deep shade of fuchsia, a dark pinky-purple. It appears to be RHS Purple 71A on the RHS Color Chart. Let's just say this flower is aptly named, with loads of deep fuchsia petals, all with a ruffled, frilly edge.
RHS Purple Color Chart with
Tree Peony 'Fuchsia Ruffles' Just Opening
I think Solaris Farms is trying to make all of the die-hard herbaceous peony fans into tree peony fans, and they're doing a fantastic job of it! For years I tried to grow tree peonies, but was unsucessful - and growing tree peonies shouldn't be that hard to do here. It was likely low quality bare root tree peonies (from less reputable sellers) and maybe a bit of inexperience (okay maybe a lot!) that caused several of my first tree peonies to fail. However Solaris Farms sends huge, beautiful roots, well adapted and ready to take root in your garden. I can't say enough good things about the tree peonies I've purchased from them. Now I can't wait to see what's next!
Tree Peony 'Fuchsia Ruffles' Up Close

2018 Peony Blooms - Week 1 Very Early

Well, I think the peony bloom season has gotten off to a pretty good start this year, despite the extended period of cold weather we've been having this year. The bloom season did not start at the end of March (which it sometimes does). April has been shaping up to be pretty cool too so far. If you don't have any very early peony blooms in your garden, I'd definitely recommend looking up one of these varieties to purchase. It just make you feel so happy seeing these first early peony blooms begin to open! I think my favorite of this week's blooms has definitely been the Paeonia Rockii tree peony that I grew from seed. I just love the color, and the nice dark purple flares radiating from the center. The red fernleaf hybrid peony and Peony 'Roy Pehrson's Best Yellow' are both pretty reliable very early bloomers for me here. Tree Peony 'Yao's Yellow' bloomed for me for the first time this year, and it smells heavenly! Which bloom is your favorite???

Tree Peony P. Rockii Seedling


Peony 'Yao's Yellow'


Red Fernleaf Hybrid Peony


Peony 'Roy Pehrson's Best Yellow'

2018 Intersectional Peony 'Scrumdidleyumptious' Arrives

Intersectional Peony 'Scrumdidleyumptious' Potted Up
My intersectional peonies from 2018 Tulip World Offers Intersectional Peony 'Scrumdidleyumptious' for $12.95! arrived this past Friday, and I immediately potted them up. The foliage had already been growing in the bag for some time. Whenever I've gotten roots like this and planted them out in their spot in the garden in the past, the foliage seems to burn up in the sun and die. I think they've been in the bag in the dark too long, and started growing in almost no light or completely no light. That's why the foliage growth is so pale. Then when I plant them out in their full sun location, the intensity of the sun's rays are just too much for the immature foliage that has been growing in the dark. So this time I decided to try potting them up and putting them in the shade for a little while, until I'm satisfied that the foliage is growing well and will live. It's kind of like hardening off plants that you've been growing indoors or in a greenhouse that are used to a warmer more even air temperatures. You have to kind of ease them into living outside again.
Intersectional Peony 'Scrumdidleyumptious' in Bags
I'm hoping by easing these plants into the light, they will have a better chance of survival. I'm just lucky I had a couple of pots and some top soil. Usually I recycle all of my pots right away, and I don't usually have top soil. I had been keeping a few pots on hand in case I wanted to share some plants, and I was using the top soil to try to fix some bare spots in my lawn and improve the soil around some underperforming plants. I kept these intersectional peonies in the shade all day on Friday, and on Saturday we had an entire day of rain. So a nice, cloudy sky to help these immature intersectional peonies to get on their way - growing! I'm just curious to see if they actually have intersectional peony foliage. We'll see... ;-)
Intersectional Peony 'Scrumdidleyumptious' Roots

2018 Peony Companions Daffodils

Peony 'Soft Lemon Kisses' with Daffodil 'Sunlight Sensation'
I'm sure many of you have daffodils as a companion with your peonies. If you don't then you should definitely consider planting some daffodil bulbs this fall. Daffodils can be an entertaining distraction while you are waiting for those peony blooms to open. They are also super easy to grow. Just dig a hole, mix in some fertilizer, put the bulbs in the bottom of the hole (spaced out), and then replace the dirt. These beautiful and easy bulbs are very reliable and will come back year after year.
Peony 'Color Magnet' with Daffodil 'Cheerfulness'
If you get lucky enough, you may even have some daffodils and very early peonies or tree peonies to bloom at the same time. There are some summer blooming varieties of daffodil like 'Summer Cheer' that will bloom later than other daffodils as well. Daffodils nowadays are not just the yellow flower that your great-grandma grew. There are so many forms, shapes, sizes, and colors to choose from now - from lemon yellows, to white, to yellow with orange, to white with pink and double daffodils, butterfly daffodils, miniature daffodils, to daffodils with multiple blooms per stem. Have fun picking out some early spring colorful cheerfulness!
Peony 'Pehrson's Violet Frisbee' with Double Daffodil 'Tahiti'

2018 Spring Tree Peony Planting 'Kinkaku' & 'Lavender Grace'

Tree Peony 'Lavender Grace' from Song Sparrow
The Tree Peony 'Lavender Grace' that I purchased when 2018 Klehms Song Sparrow Offers Tree Peony 'Lavender Grace' on Front Page of Web Site, arrived this week and so did another peony I ordered from Ebay seller orientalpeony, Tree Peony 'Kinkaku', also known as 'Souvenir de Maxime Cornu'. I got both of them planted this week. They are quite a bit behind my other tree peonies in foliage growth, but we are set to have a nice day of rain tomorrow (after almost 2 weeks on no rain!). So that should give them both a nice cloudy day to settle in after been sun-starved for a few days while in transit. We are also expecting some lower than normal temperatures and since both of these tree peonies came from a colder growing zone, that should help them feel more at home and hopefully begin to adjust to the much warmer temperatures here.
Tree Peony 'Lavender Grace' with Bud
Both of these tree peonies were actually a very nice size, and Tree Peony 'Lavender Grace' even came with a bud on it. Let's hope I can take care of it well enough to see it through to maturity. Tree Peony 'Kinkaku' looks like it will have more foliage than 'Lavender Grace', and it appears to be a bit older too. I can't tell if it has a flower bud on it or not. I guess there could be, but right now it looks like it will not flower this year. All in all I am pretty happy with both of my purchases, and I can't wait to see them grow...
Tree Peony 'Kinkaku' Sprouting

Tree Peony 'Kinkaku' from Ebay

2018 Third Peony Bloom of the Season - P. Rockii Lavender Tree Peony Seedling

P. Rockii Lavender Seedling
The 3rd peony bloom of the season opened today, well, almost. It didn't quite open all the way. So I guess a bit of the excitement will be saved for tomorrow, but I got to see the full bud on this peony today, and the beautiful lavender color of its petals. The awesome lavender color on this one excites me, as well as the fact that it seems to be so vigorous, blooming much sooner than its siblings, and growing much taller and faster as well. This P. rockii seedling is actually from some seed I bought on Ebay, 2013 Tree Peony P. Rockii Seeds on Ebay, which turned out to be 2013 P. Rockii Peony Seeds from Cricket Hill Garden. It is the first P. rockii tree peony to bloom for me ever. It first bloomed last year, but I mostly missed it, just saw a few petals dropping after the bloom. I have been growing P. rockii's that I bought as plants (from 3 separate sources) longer than this seedling has existed, and they've still never bloomed. This P. Rockii lavender seedling actually has 2 buds on it this year. So I will get the chance to see two blooms on it!
P. Rockii Lavender Seedling with 2 Buds

2018 Cold Damage Tree Peony 'Lavender Hill'

For the second year in a row a late freeze has killed all of the buds on my Tree Peony 'Lavender Hill'. It is still a bit too early to tell what the extent of the damage to all of my peonies is from the late freeze we got this year, but it is already quite evident on Tree Peony 'Lavender Hill'. There are two buds on this tree peony, and they should be continuing to grow and swell, but they are not. Both of the buds that were developing normally before the cold snap, have stopped developing and started to shrink. This will mark the 2nd consecutive year that cold has killed all of the buds on my Tree Peony 'Lavender Hill'.
Small Bud on Tree Peony 'Lavender Hill'
Blasted by Late Cold Temperatures

Advanced Bud on Tree Peony 'Lavender Hill'
Blasted by Late Cold Temperatures
Another tree peony, Tree Peony 'Angel Emily' sits right beside of this Tree Peony 'Lavender Hill'. However Tree Peony 'Angel Emily' still has most of her buds. She only lost 1 out of 10 buds (2018 Tree Peony 'Angel Emily' Goes from 3 Buds to 10 Buds in One Year of Growth!) due to the late cold. That's a 90% bud survival rate, pretty good! If your growing area is prone to late cold snaps, and you are looking for a lavender tree peony to purchase, I would definitely recommend Tree Peony 'Angel Emily' over Tree Peony 'Lavender Hill'.
Tree Peony 'Angel Emily' Bud Showing Color

2018 Second Peony Bloom of the Season - 'Yao's Yellow' 姚黃 (Yao Huang)

Tree Peony 'Yao's Yellow' 姚黃 (Yao Huang)
The second peony bloom of the season opened today, and it was a tree peony! It is also the first time I have seen this tree peony bloom. So that's nice. I planted this tree peony in the fall of 2016, and it developed its first bud this year. I must say for being called 'Yao's Yellow', it certainly is a bit white. I guess you could call it cream or creamy white. It does seem to match the photo on Cricket Hill's website for 'Yao's Yellow', though. So maybe this variety is just not that yellow. It also seems to have the same double form, a bomb type double, with a nice yellow ring of stamens. It hasn't fully opened yet so I'll be curious to see what it looks like tomorrow. It has a nice scent too.


Tree Peony 'White Phoenix' 鳳丹白 (Feng Dan Bai)
Tree Peony 'White Phoenix' also bloomed today. I thought it might wait for tomorrow, but at the very end of the day, it just started to open. So I guess you could say there was a tie for the second peony bloom of the season here, but technically Tree Peony 'Yao's Yellow' did open first, earlier in the day. This Tree Peony 'White Phoenix' is actually a very good grower here in the South. This is my largest tree peony of any I grow (and the oldest). It is probably about 3 feet tall. I planted it in the spring of 2013. So it is 5 years old this year, and it has 8 buds on it. This was the first of the 8 buds to open this year.

2018 First Peony Bloom of the Season - Red Fernleaf Hybrid

Very Early Red Fernleaf Hybrid Peony
The first peony bloom of the season finally opened to day! It was a red fernleaf hybrid peony, big surprise! This is most often the first peony to bloom in my garden. Sometimes another very early peony will open first, but not this year. The red fernleaf hybrid wins again. I took this photo around lunch time, but didn't have the chance to go out to take another photograph later in the day. There was a huge red ant working on this one, though. So I'm sure the bloom was much more open by the end of the day. What's all that yellow powder all over the peony, you ask? Pollen, and lots of it! Pine tree pollen is what creates the most mess, and my neighbors have lots of pine trees. If you live in the South, you probably know exactly what pollen season is all about. We practically swim in it for a few weeks! Here's hoping for the next rain shower to come quick!

2018 Southern Peony Intersectional Peony 'Hillary' Winner Selected

Intersectional Peony 'Hillary'
Well, many of you made guesses as to what intersectional peony the lucky winner would be receiving (to celebrate our latest milestone - 2018 Southern Peony Hits 250,000 Pageviews!!), and many of you guessed right! It is Intersectional Peony 'Hillary', a gorgeous double flowering peony with many shades of pink, hybridized by Roger Anderson and registered in 1999. If you don't grow this peony, I highly recommend it. The flowers on this peony are huge, with so many petals, and of a color that is not too common in intersectionals. The winner of the lovely peony has already been emailed. The winner has 3 days to respond, and if no response, another name will be selected. Congrats!!!

2018 The Wasp and The Ladybug (on the Peony)

The Wasp and The Ladybug
Today was the first 70 degree day we've had since February (when we oddly had an entire week of 70s). With all of this warm weather the peonies continued to grow, and all of the bugs decided to come out today as well. There were so many wasps on and flying around my peonies today, searching for and finding plenty of sweet nectar to eat off of my peony buds. They were doing the peonies no harm, and as long as they found no threat in me, did me no harm either. Wasps are definitely not my favorite flying insects, especially since I just got stung by one last year that was underneath my deck. However I'm sure they just get a bad rap, and are most likely needed, just like bees, to aid in pollination. So unless they are making nests on my front or back porch, I'm inclined to leave them be.
Peony Nectar, The Ladybug's Afternoon Snack
When I spotted this wasp trying to land on the same peony bud as this bright red ladybug, I couldn't resist taking some photos. "The Wasp and The Ladybug"... It sounds like some sort of fable, like I need to make up an entertaining story about these two. Well, the real story was that this ladybug had already found its afternoon snack, and the wasp came along and tried to take it from the ladybug. The wasp was quite persistent, but the ladybug maintained its ground, and eventually was the victor of this food battle. This bright red ladybug is just too cute. I don't remember if I've ever seen one on one of my peony buds before. Ladybugs are supposed to be good luck. Let's hope that means the peonies will be blooming well this year. With all the cold weather we've had this March (until today), you can probably imagine that I'm getting a little impatient waiting for the peony buds to start opening... Let's hope they bloom soon!
The Ladybug "Cleaning" the Peony Bud

2018 Well-Priced Peonies for Sale at Hardware Store - Lowe's

Herbaceous Peonies Offered For Sale at Lowe's
It's not exactly the best season to plant them, but if you need herbaceous peonies and you need them right now, then now might be a good time to stop into your local Lowe's Home Improvement store to grab some of these well-priced peonies. What especially caught my eye wasn't just the price, but also the selection. Yes, they have some of the well known and widely distributed standard varieties - Peony 'Dr. Alexander Fleming', Peony 'Felix Crousse', and Peony 'Sorbet', but they also have a coral peony for sale - Peony 'Coral Sunset'. This is the first time I've seen a coral peony offered as a bare root bagged and carded peony in a big box store. If you don't yet have a coral peony, this might be your opportunity to snag one for a great price!
Peony 'Coral Sunset' for $6.98 per Root!