The Easter freeze plus any thin new growth from the previous growing season has spelled out a problem for lots of our local CMS. Earlier in the spring many of them that had about one inch thick trunks even had to be pruned all the way down to almost ground level. In those situations, the CMs reprouted and have regrown to a point where they are now able to be pruned back again, leaving the strongest growing main leader trunks to continue growing and hardening off. Those newly grown trunks are now only about a quarter of an inch thick, and we are very concerned for their need to at least double in thickness and hardened off again so they will have a chance for survival this coming winter. For that reason we do not plan on dead heading the spent flowers to force new growth and more freqent than normal reblooming. If your Acoma CM is not struggling as much as what I just described has happened to many of our locally Grown CMs, then it must be a very good CM Cultivar. It is good that you are going to fertilize it. While you are doing that make certain that the root flare of your Acoma is just at ground level, and that any mulch, which may be covering the rootball, is pulled back at least 4 inches away from the rootflare. If you can not find the root flare when you pull back a little bit of the soil around the trunks of you CM, that could be indicating, you CM may now be situated too deeply into the soil. If that is the case continue removing the soil until you do find the root flare (that topmost place where the roots begin to grow out of the trunk) and slightly taper the soil. Then cover the entire planting bed with mulch, but like mentioned above, Keep the mulch at least 4 inches away from the trunk. When you reported that your Acoma has grown some, did you mean that you have seen new growth this spring and early summer? Is it fully leafed out? Have you avoided doing the "crape myrtle murder" pruning on it, except where the trunks and branches may have frozen already from winter and Easter freeze kill? If your Acoma has been "CM murder" pruned it could take even longer for your CM to recover, just like it slowes the CM down from forming the bloom buds, if you have not pruned back, to the first set of three leaves, the freeze killed dead ends of the branches. At any rate do not give up on your Acoma just yet. The trunk, foliage, and root developing that it has been and is currently doing should make it a much more resiliant shrub or small tree, once it finally does begin to put forth large amounts of its energy for blooming.

Different tree peonies take longer to mature. Do you know what variety they are.

Hmmm... what has your watering schedule been like? The first thing that comes to mind is possibly over / under watering due to the droopiness of the leaves but it is odd that the other branches are fine. In your second picture, that leaf that's curled with the black part on it almost makes me think it's got too much water but it's hard to say for sure so that's why I ask. Good drainage? Is there anything that could be reflecting heat on that branch - the windows? Have you applied any fertilizer or pesticides? Hard to see in the pics but are the black specks on the inflo just where flowers fell off or have you been dropping buds?

Thanks everyone....Vaporvac, I'm lousy at trying to post pics...my smart phone is smarter than I am...lol....Sheila as you're an Oregonian as I am...(live in Corvallis)...I think you are probably right. My instincts are telling me that it's time for the old grey wood to go. Rifs...I'm confident that this grey (huge), cane is probably the original cane...so, maybe it's just past it's productive life. The other cane with all the good growth is coming from just under the huge nodule on the old grey cane...so it seems to me, not than I'm very knowledgeable, that it's also a QE II....both canes (grey and the other), have produced the same kind of roses for the last 5 years I've lived here. It's going to take a logger to take this cane down...any suggestions as to time of year to do it? Sheila, this old grey cane, comes down to a huge nodule at it's base...should I cut it just above that? Again, thanks all, much appreciated.