Doing quite well I see. Nice to see something green I bet.

I am waiting for some warm, sunny days to give it a dose of sunlight during the day. We are expecting several days of freezing temps so possibly we will have some decent days next week. Speaking of green, I have daffodils up 3 or 4 inches tall.

The new peonies continue to put on growth, despite the cold temperatures. We didn't get out of the 30's on Friday. I pulled the pine straw mulch off today to check on them, and these 2 peonies have continued to grow. We're going to have several days this week where we ge into the 60's during the daytime. I heard the groundhog didn't see his shadow, so we're expected to have an early spring, we'll have to see. Lois' Choice defintely has a bud, I hope it doesn't blast, and Cheddar Surpise definitely has leaves up.

You have two very nice peonies. I see 'Lois' Choice' is a bit pricey and one to give special care. I really like 'Cheddar Surprise' also. Georgia should not have a lot of freezing weather left so they both should make it ok.

Thanks OGR. Except for tonight, there are no other nights that will go below freezing for the next 10 days. Last year, we started warming up at the end of January, and it never got cold again. It caused everything to bloom much earlier than it had in the past.

My potted experiment still doing well. I gave it some 50° sunlight today. Soon it will be able to spend the day outside. Over 8 inches and branching but the stem is not developed well.

I think mine that were up too far up and got freeze burn. I'll check tomorrow again as we've had snow, sleet, rain back to freezing temps (single digits), lake effect snow.

You both are doing great with yours. Looking forward to your progress.

You may be surprised as to how resilent young peonies are. The serious damage is done when they are budding their flowers. I would not worry too much yet.

Looks like we are in for another round of snow on Friday so maybe they will all get tucked under again.

My peonies were up quite early last year in March and April, then the first May we got some nasty freezes and the only peony that really took a hit was an intersectional that I think was a tissue culture. It was huge and leafy and the second day after a 27 degree night it looked incredibly sad. Peonies that had color showing on their flower buds got their flowers a bit nipped, but most peonies especially the fern leaf peonies just laughed at the cold. My lilies not so much....

The current forecast for the Northeast is from 12+ inches to 24+ inches of snow. Should be a good ground cover for awhile.

I pray that everyone who lives in the Northeast stays safe during the expected blizzard this weekend.

Annette

Started snowing here around 3PM today. Expecting it to slow down by midnight for us and tapper off by morning. Hopefully not too much to clean up tomorrow. No blizzard warning for us. Just Winter Weather Warning/advisories. I think we got lucky considering what other areas east and north of us are getting.

Weekly update for my potted 'Gay Paree'. Exposing it to natural sunlight during warm periods. Looks promising.

Wow, your Gay Paree looks very happy. I'm glad it's doing well. I found a small piece of my Shojuraku broken off of the original plant, so I gave it a new home, this past fall, and to my surprise, it's growing.

Wow, both of you are going to have some great plants.

I can't believe how quickly that Gay Paree is growing.

Annette: Are you saying you took a piece of the original plant, replanted it and that is it growing?

Julia

The 'Gay Paree' probably will not bloom on the single stalk but hopefully will develop another eye or two and form some substantial roots. I plan to keep it potted until the 2014 planting season. Much will depend upon how the master set of roots and eyes turn out this year.

Hi Julia, it was a part of the root, about 3 inches in length that I planted, not a part of the plant. My hope was that it would how bigger roots, and eventually form pips, and develop into a plant over the next few years. The single stem was a surprise. The tag that came with this plant said Shojuraku, which when checking the spelling, it's spelled Chojuraku, for a tree peony, but this plant comes back from the roots every year, like a herbaceous peony. I wonder if it was mislabeled?

I've been out of town since last Saturday, and got home this afternoon, and I just had to do a quick garden tour. I found Cheddar Charm is now 3-4 inches tall, and several of the other peonies are leafing out. We have a 30% chance of snow tomorrow, and more cold weather next week. What are these plants thinking ;-(

Cem what you have is the herbaceous rootstock that was used as the nurse root. Could be very nice or not. I had one that was a wonderful single white. The flower appeared to be made of wax. When I separated from the tree peony the white did not live.

The two spellings of the tree peony are both correct. Both are english translations of the spelling in Japanese and Chinese.

If there is enough tree peony cells remaining where the stem entered the nurseroot sometimes a tree peony will grow given time. Time can be up to 3 years or probably more. One of my at least took the 3 years and is a lovely plant after being eaten, stepped on and broken off .

Thanks for the info Alana, the peony that blooms every years is scarily similar in color to the true Shojuraku, however, the booms aren't as fluffy as I would expect with a tree peony. However, I still like the blooms that I get every spring. Annette