2016 It's Starting... Tree Peonies are Waking Up!

OMG! I am so excited. My tree peonies are starting to wake up! There are even a couple of coral peonies that have started to sneak a little stem out of the ground. Peony season is coming! After three 70° days in a row, how could they not wake up? I am so happy to see many of my tree peonies are coming back from last year - sorry to say I have killed a few (and there may more casualties this year). I only have a small number of tree peonies, even though they supposedly grow very well here. I am trying to grow my tree peony collection, and still trying to figure out how to grow them. They're a little different than the herbaceous peonies that I'm used to growing. However, I think I am *starting* to get the hang of it - by no means an expert, but I'm starting to get them to come back year to year. ;-) I can't wait to see what my tree peonies do this year. I think a few of them have tips that look like bud tips on them. So some of the tree peonies that I have not yet seen bloom, might give me a flower this spring - very exciting!!!

Tree Peony 'Li Yuan Chun' 李园春 Leafing Out	Tree Peony 'Li Yuan Chun' 李园春 Leafing Out

2016 Why I Love Saunders Peonies (& You Should Too!)

Early Blooming A. P. Saunders Herbaceous Peonies
If you haven't discovered any of A. P. Saunders herbaceous peonies (or have a whole collection of them) yet, then you should definitely give them a try. There are so many reasons to love these early hybrids, here are mine:

1. Foliage - Their early foliage usually creeps out of the ground 1 or 2 weeks before any of my other peonies, which really builds excitement for the peony bloom season.

2. Early Blooms - Also most of them are early bloomers, giving my garden colorful blooms before some of my peonies have even fully woken up and developed their buds.

3. Lots of Colors - They don't just come in light pink and white. There are fire engine reds, light yellows, pale pinks, whites, corals, shocking pinks, and lavender too!

Even though last year I had Saunders Peony Varieties Frozen Bud Blast, several were unaffected, and some still put on a good early show! So if you are eager to expand your peony bloom season, check out the extensive list of A. P. Saunders herbaceous hybrid peonies. I grow so many of them, but there are still so many more I want to grow!

2016 Ten Years of Southern Peony Blooms

To celebrate 10 years of blooms here at Southern Peony, I decided to put together this peony bloom photo collage. It contains one bloom from each of the 10 years - 2005-2015. I have added this collage to my Peony Bloom Dates page. So if you ever need to stare at its mesmerizing beauty, you can do so anytime you like! I have organized this Peony Bloom Dates page a little, giving it some new headers, and cleaned my peony bloom offset data a bit more - removing some mislabeled peonies I have given away and updating some incorrect Asian characters. Also if you're curious about the cultivars in the collage, they are... Peony 'Blue Lagoon', Peony 'Morning Lilac', Peony 'Muskoka', Peony 'Cora Louise', Peony 'Rose Heart', Peony 'Lemon Chiffon', Peony 'Firelight', Peony 'Pink Hawaiian Coral', and Peony 'Lavender', and Peony 'Coral Magic'!
10 Years of Southern Peony Blooms!

2016 Ten Years of Peony Bloom Data!

Yay! After finishing my 2016 Peony Data Entry in Winter Time, I finally have ten years of peony bloom data. I think I finally have enough to start publishing it on my site now. Last year was the first year I got my Peony Bloom Data in a Peony Database. This past week I spent some time analyzing and cleaning my data, reloading my old data, and adding last year's new data into the database. I still feel like the data could be better with more of it, but I suppose that will come with time. For now, I plan to publish peony bloom dates based on the offset from Peony 'Red Charm', which is the currently accepted method. However, I may add or change the reporting method in the future. For now, here's the scoop... Check out my Peony Bloom Dates page! :-)

2016 3-Trunked Monster Down = More Sun for Peonies

Ice Storm Damage to Three Trunked Monster Tree
Well, the ice storm did a number on the big oak tree in our back yard. Remember the 3 trunked monster I told you about last year that was eating all of the sun in my back yard and caused me to do my own Southern Peony Big Dig - Part Shade to Full Sun? Well, all three of the trunks were leaning/growing at angle, and we got so much ice in the big ice storm we had this winter, that one of those giant trunks just cracked completely in half. It's just as well. I had been wanting to cut this oak tree down for a couple of years now. I do think it served its purpose well. It provided years of shade for my daughter while playing in the back yard, a nice perch for all of the birds visiting our back yard feeder, and now it will provide wood for our fireplace next winter and several winters to come! Now that it's gone, the remaining peonies that didn't get moved in the big dig, will be much happier now with so much more sunshine. When this tree was small, the peonies near it grew well since it was so small and short, but as this tree grew over the years, the peonies actually started to dwindle, growing fewer stems and making fewer blooms each year. Here's hoping the sun will make them happy, and they will start to increase again!

Three Trunked Monster Tree	Three Stumped Monster