Why I Oughta...

It has taken six growing seasons, but we *finally* have enough peonies to make a bouquet.  Just one bouquet.   But, it is still a bouquet.  That's a major victory for me.  We had a major set of Peony tubers in our first house in Elmhurst.  We also had a full sun backyard.  In Downers Grove we have had peonies that have grown, but never really flowered.  And, mostly shade. So, over the years, I've moved the plants around.  And, it seems that I've found a few spots that work for peonies.  We have (this year) three flowering peony plants.  First, a darker, purple-ish single blom: That opened up to look like this: We had one white peony that bloomed - a Duchesse de Nemours white peony that is also in our backyard.  See below for that bloom after I cut it and brought it in: And, finally...the largest of the peony plants:  Sarah Bernhardt pink peonies .  This peony plant is out front, IB2DWS and this is what it looked like...

One of the best features of our garden back in Elmhurst were our peonies.  We had well-established and productive peony plants that produced a ton of blooms.  When we moved to Downers, we inherited one, but it was planted back in the shade and never really did anything .   I planted a couple and transplanted a couple from some teardowns , but they were all clustered in the back with not a ton of sun exposure.  Until last year.  When I expanded the beds closer to our patio and moved three of them there and one to the front yard - IB2DWs area.    I also planted a new white one - Duchesse de Nemours white .  If you look at the photo in this post , it looks like I had FOUR peony plants in this area last year.   When I go to look at that spot, there's good news and bad news.   Good news first:  I see some of those tell-tale red tips emerging from the soil.  If you look closely at this photo below, you can spot them: ...

A series of garden diary posts that I've been sharing for ten years now features the moment when our peony plants emerge from the mulch each Spring.  The first time I posted photos of the redish buds was all the way back in 2010 here .  From then, I've posted about this: 2011 peony post 2012 peony post 2013 peony post 2014 peony post 2015 peony post 2016 - doesn't appear that I posted 2017 - one of our foster peony plants in Naperville 2018 - one of our *new* Downers peony post 2019 peony post   And another one here . That's 9 of the past 10 years.  Including this year, that makes 10 of 11 years. This peony in the photo is located back by our Dawn Redwood - it is a 'teardown peony' - either from our house before they tore it down or from The Fox Family Den's yard before they built their own house.

Yesterday, I posted a hopeful photo of the first peony that I planted in the backyard that has come back for the second season.  Today, you're seeing another peony - one that we planted from my Sister-in-Law's yard before they built their new house.  Here's the post showing the harvest I pulled out of her yard that included irises, a grass or two, some hostas and what at the time I was pretty sure was a peony plant.  If you look at the date on that post, you'll notice that it is right in the middle of the Summer.  Not an ideal time to transplant anything.  But, we didn't have a choice, so late June transplanting was what we were dealing with in this situation.  Most of the plants didn't show much life.  They didn't show total death for the most part, but I wasn't that hopeful that much of anything was going to come back.  The only plant that seemed to flourish and grow post transplanting from her yard was this happy fern that I put ...