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.
