I live in north Florida and have peonies in the ground. They are slow to grow, but have survived. I've also experimented with putting peonies in the refrigerator for a couple of months to see if they perform better than icing them in the ground. The ones I put in the refrigerator have done much better than those in the ground. The real problem is that the temps are just too high too much of the time for peonies to do well in the ground. I have herbaceous, itoh and tree peonies all growing. The image is of a Raggedy Ann itoh peony from 2018. First year blooming. The second pic is 2019, the same peony. Definite change in color from year one to two.
