Thanks, Diann and Karen.

Karen - most of my azaleas are spring bloomers and luckily do coincide with the peonies.
Here is Morning Lilac with white azalea in the background and a pink dogwood at top right corner.

That is just beautiful.

Dianne, I love your exuberant color combinations! Gorgeous!

Thanks, Neal and Diann.

Next up were these that bloomed last week.
I had this labelled as Casablanca, but it doesn't look like it. Ideas of what it may be?


above bloom but fully opened



Raspberry Sundae - with buds/blooms at three different stages. The lighter (but smaller bloom) is older and the pinker one is at an earlier blooming stage.

The ITOHs do combine the best of the two peony types. I like the form of the tree peonies, but their bloom period is often times measured in a few days. Morning Lilac's first bloom opened on March 26th, and now, 3 weeks later, it still has about 4-5 blooms .

Morning Lilac on March 25 and March 26



A week later, about a third are opened


And week 3 - still has enough color while the Coral Charm in the background is starting to open. I try to plant a wide variety of plants so that there is a succession of blooms through most of the year.

Beautiful! Dianne that noid looks like it could be Do Tell.

Do any of you grow any that are variable? I have one that was given to me originally as a teen, and have been carrying around some ever since. It is a Japanese/anemone bloom, and some years it has pink guard petals and a creamy yellow center poof, other times the center is pink. For many years I kept thinking I was just mistaken, that the peony I was thinking of must be somewhere else. After moving a start to an area I wanted a pink, it bloomed with a cream/yellow center and I thought I was losing it. I was considering moving it again, and the next year it bloomed pink, and I was really confused. Started looking through old photos and realized the thing was going back and forth! Then one year it produced both colors at the same time- I felt like that plant was playing a practical joke on me, LOL.

Neal, could your noid be Top Brass? It does bloom cream with yellow center or cream with yellow center with a poof of pink.

Possibly, but the guard petals are typically pink, and descriptions I read of Top Brass say cream guard petals. It would definitely be an older cultivar, likely before 1970, and I did see that Top Brass was introduced in 1964.

Neal- no variables that I have noticed. Thanks for the ID of that pinkish one.

First bloom from Early Scout.

Just look at all those blooms on Early Scout. I am hoping to have at least a few on mine. It is out of dormancy, one of the first. But was terribly puny last year. I moved it (yet again) the year before so many now that I have left it alone it will be more robust.

Jerry, that clump is perfect!

Dianne, here's a pic of Do Tell. It does look like it could be a match. I planted Do Tell in fall of 2013, no blooms last year, but I see 4 buds now.

Mary Stella, I'm hard pressed to move a peony- it has to look really bad in a spot before I'll do it.

Actually, digging and dividing an old peony clump is healthy for it. It begins a new life and will welcome the new space allocated to it. Most peonies I have seen reach a point where they do not put up new growth and roots. As far as I know, the jury is still out regarding using the same location to replant divisions. If one follows the conventional wisdom, it is better to begin in a new spot and let the old area lay fallow or plant another type of plant there. Helps prevent diseases and nutrition issues. There is a reason modern farmers always rotate crops.

How old are you talking?

Neal - does look like a match

Jerry/Oldgardenrose - totally off topic but seeing your rose avatar reminded me of the slip of rose stem you sent me maybe 4 years ago?? Here it is now -



Thanks so much for it


Now back to peonies - Nice early Scout. I have yet to successfully grow one.

I have no problems moving herbaceous peonies, but my one attempt to move a tree peony was disasterous. It had a really long tap root which I broke and it never recovered.

I kinda think of peonies like trees or shrubs and just leave them be. Of course I'm thinking of my grandmother's peonies that were just out in the lawn and stayed there forever undisturbed. I do care for them more than she did (she loved her flowers, but wasn't really much of a gardener per se). Then I've never gardened in one spot for more than 10 years, so my old varieties I've carried with me haven't really gotten a chance to develop huge clumps.

Tracey and Diann, I'm curious how you decide on time to divide?

I also have in my memory digging starts from really old, established clumps- what a chore that was! Some of the roots were as big as my arm!

Soilsandup: I have been meaning to check with you to see if the rose root which I sent to you survived and grew. Good that it is doing well. It will put out suckers and spread into a nice bush or climb to about 8 feet tall if supported on a trellis.

As far as an age to divide peonies, it is a matter of personal preference. I do it on an impulse method, rather than scientific issues. A mature clump can become 4 or 5 nice divisions in cases of a really nice peony to be donated to friends or just to begin a new location.