I'm really looking forward to visiting it, Jennifer. I'll post lots of pics when I get home.

Annette, glad to see they're looking promising this year! I had the same thing with Cytherea--it struggled for 3-4 years, I dug it up last fall and divided it and re-planted in a drier spot. Hopefully it'll be happier in its new location.

More pictures from today. I can see buds on several plants

Hello everyone!

It's exciting to see your pictures. Over here, the weather has been strangely warm. The winter cold came early last year and I thought for sure we'd have a long cold spell. Then it warmed (40s) in December except for a few sudden days of freezing. I was assured by people who live here that the warming is normal and that the last three years have been odd; however, it was strange to see plants develop two months earlier than last year!

Now it's rain rain rain rain rain.

My peonies are doing well. I can't say the same for my bulb plants. Squirrels have been busy digging them up and I didn't know deer ate crocuses!! Plus, my tulips keep getting chewed to the ground, so I sprayed them again. Hopefully, they will still bud.

These are my tallest so far:
Shima Nishiki


High Noon


Chojuraku


fixpix: https://hort.uwex.edu/articles...
Someone on another site had declining peonies because they were planted near a walnut tree. Eventually, they stopped budding. She moved them but doesn't have high hopes that they'll recover. Some people haven't had problems, but without knowing how circumstances differed, it's difficult to comment.

When the plants go dormant, so does my gardening zeal. It's starting to come back! I love seeing these new plants stretch and flex!

Pwinjet, your plants look great, and your Shima Nishiki is further along than mine, which is just leafing out. That's a nice bud on Chojuraku. I bought a plant labelled Shojuraku several years ago, but I believe the herbaceous graft took over, and now I have a plant with pink blooms, but it is definitely not a tree peony.

Can you save your tree peony? Several of mine have suspicious buds coming from the ground even though I planted the trees deeply. Some of the buds are so close to the tree stem that I don't know if it's tree growth (I may have to excavate).

I'm sorry you all suffered such violent weather down there in the south. I used to live in Florida. I remember when I was little, the temperature dropped below freezing. There was no snow or anything; it was just cold. School was cancelled anyway

The peonies here seem to have done well with the cold weather. Many of my plants have buds, including some of the plants I put on last fall.

I'm most excited to see my Festiva Maxima that I grew from puny tubers with buds this year.


The rest of the plants, especially the Itohs are doing well, except Pastel Splendor is the furthest behind of all of the.

so glad to see all of your peonies betting ready to bloom !! I don''t think I will see my flower beds for at least 2-3 more weeks there is so much snow on them . I have always had peonies but just GETTING in to them so this site is wonderful !! Do you think the tree ones would grow in zone 5 Michigan ?? I have never seen one but sure would love to try one

I have a tree peony in a pot. It's been there 5 years now. We used to be z5. Is your z5 from the new zones?

I'v always been a z5 I don't think that its changed not sure . If it did it coulen't be by much

A couple of my early risers. Our weather is supposed to have a warming trend so things should begin to pop up soon.

Gloria, I absolutely think tree peonies would do well in MI. Anywhere herbaceous do well trees should, too. I'm in Colorado, zone 4B (according to local nurseries re our local micro-climate) or zone 5 (according to the national zone charts) and tree peonies do well here as do herbaceous and Itohs.

My husband is from MI so we go there often, planning a trip late this spring to the U of M Nichols Arboretum http://mbgna.umich.edu/peony/. Bet they would have an answer for you from your immediate area!

Love seeing that new growth emerge. Warmer today, but back to colder the next few days here. At some point the weather trend has to improve, right?

It has been raining a lot here. We often have days of rain cut in half by sun. We had one day where it hailed for 10 min, had beautiful sun for 20, then hailed for another 10, had sun for 20, rained for 30, sun for an hour, etc - lol. Capricious weather!

I agree with Liz, glevely. The trees should be fine. The trees have an issue with dieback if there is a lot of frigid wind. Some people have covered them over the winter; you might want to if harsh winds is what you experience where you are. Look at me! I own a few trees for a year and now act like I know a thing or two!

I did lose an herbaceous peony this year. I'm troubled. I don't like losing any of them, but how can I know what caused it? The other peonies in the same bed are growing perfectly. I tore it apart trying to see if it was completely lost, and all of it was soft, with some parts decaying. It never sprouted. I want to question the company, but I'm not sure which plant it is. The arrangement of the plants doesn't quite fit my list. I assume it is my Green Halo, because of the shape, and because the root arrived with a suspiciously wet and black spot at the bottom, but not sure until the others finish growing. (Oh gosh, I hope I took pics!) If that is the case, I'm having trouble with two others from the same company. One isn't growing at all and the other is starting to wither.

Pwinget, thanks for the info.
I knew those walnut trees are of no good
But I can't cut them off as they are my dad's... he's hoping to eat a lot of walnuts soon :)

Funny thing, I have most of my big peonies (herbaceous and tree) close to the walnuts. The herbaceous always bloom nicely.
Also the trees show a lot of plump buds now. Let's see what happens soon

thanks Liz great site I need to get there some day too !!

Jerry, Roselette and Early Scout have a lot of pips, your going to have some good looking plants this year.

Pwin, I'm sorry to hear you've lost a peony, hopefully the vendor will replace it for you. It's so frustrating when you take tke time to plant it properly, and it doesn't show up. I've had to dig up some of my peonies when I find them struggling, potted them, and babied them till they do better, before planting them in the garden. I've also lost a few herbaceous plants as well, and when I dig in the area, I don't even find any rotted roots.

Calin, your buds look really healthy, hopefully they'll continue to swell and bloom for you this year.

Having a peony not make an appearance really is disappointing. That happened with my Top Brass. I was so looking forward to it. My niece got 3 peonies for me and that was the only no-show.
Barrington Bell and Sante Fe


The other 5 in back I have to slosh through soggy grass to get pics. Not gonna.

I suffer from horrible peony envy. I have been so consumed with dahlias and tubers that I sort of forgot all my peonies. Easy to do when they are under 12" of snow. But soon they will be out and then they will sprout. ewwww. I made a poem.

Hi Mary, welcome to the peonies forum. I'm so glad to see you posting here. I was so inspired by your picture of Miss America that you posted on the other site last year, I ordered it for delivery this fall.

Celia, it looks like your peonies are waking up nicely. Spring is definitely here