This season I'll be speaking to a number of local and State-wide garden club groups and appearing at several large day long Spring Garden Festivals using full color images of peonies to raise the awareness of the wide variety of colors and forms in the Wonderful World of Peonies. While the web makes shopping easier it also increases the competition for the same number of plants offered so if you have your heart set on a special plant get your order in before the peony bloom season when even the casual peony collector joins in on the fun and starts placing orders. Enjoy the photos and best wishes for a wonderful winter as you put together your 2010 wish list! September 24th, 2009 We can finally see light at the end of the tunnel with the shipping of peony orders. We are up to Order #1483 as of today! The very dry conditions since the last post made the final digging very tricky as the clay tends to form blocks and break roots as we dig. A fair number of varieties will be on the sold out list for 4 years+ as we divide and rebuild stock. We were shocked at how much shipping went up this year and may need to rethink how rates are calculated for next season. Remember to water your new peonies in the fall when they are producing new roots. August 29th, 2009 We have had perfect weather, cool and slightly breezy to begin our peony harvest 2 days early this year. Soil conditions are as near to perfect as we have had in 3 years. It is exciting to begin cleaning, dividing , labeling as we prepare to get your orders out to you and into your gardens this fall. Start preparing the site and have it ready for they will be on their way before too long! August 16, 2009 Our Peony species seed is all harvested and ready for planting. Some species were very generous with seed this year and others did not come throughn with more than a seed or two. The most exciting though were the Saunders hybrids which rarely if ever produce seeds and a good number of seeds from P. officinalis rubra plena and P. officinalis rosea plana which have only produced 2 seeds in 20+ years of pollenation. These seeds once germinated will produce their first flowers perhaps 5-7 years from now so we are so happy to have them to plant this fall. August 2009 Hard to believe we begin digging and shipping peonies in a few short weeks. We have been so fortunate to get timely rains at our growing fields location which will result in us having nice plump roots to dig and ship out fresh to those who have reserved their plants with an order this season. While we have a very good selection left this fall yet we are planning to dig some popular varieties and hold them back next season as we rebuild our stocks. Don't be shy and get an order in before September while they are still available. Remember that your peonies will be developing new roots this fall and if you are in an area that has had dry soil conditions you can imnprove your peony bloom immensely with a timely watering every other week as needed to make up for a lack of rainfall. Now that the bloom season is over we are busy getting our pre-dig field counts made so that we know which rows to dig and which rows will be empty so we can figure out which plants will have to be divided for planting back for future offerings. We have started to get our photos from the bloom season organized and ready for resizing to fit the requirement of posting on the web. This is the first chance that we get a preview of what has enough plant numbers that we may offer them in 2010. Some items of course will go off the list for a few years as new ones come online. It's always an exciting time when we are planning future peony offerings and making the final decission on what seedlings will be divided and planted out for final evaluation and increase before registration with the American Peony Society and release to the public. July 16, 2009 Customers often ask what my favorite peony is and I normally would answer, Paeonia peregrina, but this year Addie Tischler just wowed me seeing it in a glorious long row in the fields standing so straight and tall and looking fresher than many of the surounding varieties of peonies. Highlight took top honors on my list of very dark red varieties. The top performer in the hybrid class would be Carol that was near perfection of bloom when exhibited by our friends Paul and Suzanne at the Minesota Peony Society Flower Show in June. Although the stems are nearly always crooked our friends and neighbors who received them as cut flower gifts were more than delighted and could not believe the size and brilliant true red color! I hope you made notes during the peony bloom season and have a chance to add one or two that are on the top of your list to your garden this fall. We have been busy tagging more plants for fall digging already. A few peonies listed as sold out have caught the attention of folks who either just found our web site or delayed completing their orders. Unlike most products that can be manufactured it takes 3-4 years to produce a new crop of peonies. So it's true "the early bird gets the worm" is a good saying in this case. If you see something in the Limited Editions listing they are most likely candidates for propagation and an order before they are sold out will mean not having to wait a few years until available again. June 19, 2009 What a fantastic time of year walking through the thousands of peonies in bloom in the fields to tag plants for our customer orders. I know it slows me down but I just have to smell one of each variety. The reds were vibrant with this years cool temperatures. The whites had just a blush of pink from the cool night temperatures. It is exciting to see which peonies have grown up and are ready for including in next years offerings. Others sadly will be held for a few years as we rebuild our stock. Take a look at this years offerings and treat yourself and add something wonderful to your garden this fall.
March 2009 - More questions are coming in all the time about restoring historic gardens with authentic named varieties of old peonies. In the past few months we have responded to requests from restoration projects in Illinois, New York and Michigan. The ages of the gardens vary from the 1930's to 1823.
So many of the plants in the gardens are unlabeled and lead to a merry chase trying to find their identities. That is why we recommend planting a tag with the peony roots as it can be dug up decades later and still be readable without the harmful effects of the sun reaching it. Requests for some of these rarer and unusual antique varieties has been picking up. If you have an interest in these old and often fragrant varieties take a look at the link we have provided on the Antique and Historic varieties. Our oldest peony is from 1581 when the red double form of Paeonia officinalis rubra plena was recorded in European herbals.
March 10, 2009. What a great time the past week has been meeting with peony growers from throughout the US. I was so impressed to see the rising interest in peonies from Portland to Minneapolis as people learn more about the new Award of Lanscape Merit winning peonies that stand up in the landscape without support. It is exciting to see that these plants are so easy to care for in our modern landscape. Take a look and see the wide variety of colors and forms available. April 7th What an enthusiastic group of Master Gardeners that I spoke to about breeding daylilies last evening. Questions on hardiness and high flower bud counts were indications of what gardeners are looking for in Northern gardens. Next week is my last presentation this spring in Cambridge, Minnesota on my favorite topic, peonies! Brigitte and I have been getting the wind blown leaves off the peony plants that are emerging to keep the soggy wet leaves off the plants. If you mulched your peonies don't let them start to grow under soggy wet mulch since that is a good way to encourage disease early in the season. Peonies are really cold tolerant and the snow that last few days really means nothing to them as far as hardiness. We continue to get requests from the deep south for peonies and if anyone would care to share their success stories with us we would love to hear about them. Until next time Happy Spring!
June 1 Many peony species are just finishing bloom now and the hybrids are coming on strong. Dry fall weather and very dry spring weather caused a major delay in the bloom season and some newly planted peonies last fall are still emerging now that rain has finally come. We are in a drought situation over much of the state and encourage folks to give their perennials a good long soaking to help them through the bloom season. Cool nights have helped most of the flowers last quite well and show some brighter color in seasons with cool blooming temperatures. | 
