... and I thought you were going to say grasshoppers, LOL!

Yep, saw my first ones this weekend, about 1/4" in length.

Congratulations on your tulips, and peonies!

Bonnie

I planted a peony last year and it did nothing. Never sprouted or showed any signs of life. Today it's about 3 inches tall :-)

Our house in Montana had a beautiful, old peony and some babies I dug & transplanted. I guess the people we sold to promptly ripped out all the peonies claiming allergies. My neighbor was very sad to see it. Such a waste.

I just planted some peonies this past month and I hope they come back next year like yours. I planted English lavender last year that appears to be gone for good. :( Someone mentioned somewhere that Munstead lavender does well here so I guess I will try that. I also have tulips blooming that I planted last year. It is so exciting to see all your hard work pay off with beautiful blooms! I hope another year of gardening will pay off the way this past year has.
I saw a few grasshoppers but when they saw all the weeds were gone they left also.LOL

Peonies are actually pretty hard to killÂat least from my experience they are! When I moved in here, there was a peony in each of the two whisky barrels (peonies in whisky barrels???), and another one in the middle of the rock mulch in the backyardÂdoing very poorly! I didnÂt have anywhere that wasnÂt thoroughly "rocked" that year, so I dug them up and put them in 2-gallon pots. Was planning to put them back in the ground the next spring, but I still had rock all over the place in spring, and they wound up staying in the pots a second year. That was the winter (Â06) that was one big long blizzard, and I was sure theyÂd be dead by springÂif it ever came! At one point the snow melted on top of the pots enough to fill them up with water, which couldnÂt drain out because the soil was frozen solid, and when I discovered what had happened, I tried to dump the pots over to get rid of the waterÂbut they were frozen solid to the ground! The water froze and I had peony-pops! I was SURE they were dead then! When they finally thawed enough that I could kick them loose from the ground, I laid them on their side so the extra water could drain out as it melted.

In spring they happily started growingÂand I sat the pots back upright! I still didnÂt have a place to plant them, but I wasnÂt gonna deal with them in pots for another whole year so I cleared a big enough spot in the ROCK in the front yardÂwhich gets lots of sun, mushed all three of them together, and planted them in the one holeÂit was too hot to dig two more holes thru the rock! I now have a (third year in the ground) "multicolored" peony which is doing quite nicely. I have a peony ring around it, and itÂs up to the top of the ring and budding already this year. This will be the first year I hope to get a pretty nice bloom.

SOÂJennifer, donÂt give up on the other one yet! You never know!

ProvoGirl, IÂll be posting a list of seeds I have on the swap thread, but since you brought up lavender here, would you like me to put you down for some lavender seeds? Once you get one started, youÂll have plenty of seedlings coming up in the area. I always have seedlings coming up, but unfortunately theyÂre growing in/thru the landscape fabric (that was in when I bought the place), and IÂve tried everything to get them out of the fabric and into pots, but they always dieÂso I canÂt bring you a plant. Any of the English lavenders, Lavandula angustifolia, should do well for you. Mine is either ÂMunstead or ÂHidcoteÂ, not sure which since it was here when I bought the place, and they're too similar to tell apart without a label!

Hang in there and keep an eye out for your other peony, Jennifer!

Skybird

P.S. Jennifer, I thought you were gonna say grasshoppers or something too!

Love peonies. So happy that yours has returned. My grandmother used to grow them all around her house up in Ohio, and I thought they were magic or something. I didn't know anything about perennial plants as a kid, so it seemed to me that they disappeared entirely with winter and when they were there again the next spring it was shocking!

Yay, not grasshoppers! I have seen a LOT of ladybugs lately, and the poor dears seem a bit out of sorts, flying thither and yon... and INTO THINGS! BONK!

Peonies in pots... I do everything in pots, and my peonies LOVE it. I, too, have had peony popsicles, but they are the very first thing I see every year. Oh wait, besides those hollyhocks, which I'm not even sure ever really died out last year? Just kidding, they did, but by George, they were up in March, and are bushes already! When I see the peonies, though, that's when I know I've missed my "pre-emergent crabgrass control" window of opportunity; but I also know that it's the perfect time to go back and rake up the yard again and clean out whatever got messy over the winter.

And yes, the first couple of years I had them, I was convinced that they were goners. They didn't even get mulched or put up next to the house this past (unusually long and super-cold) winter, so whatever you do, don't dig up the area--they may yet come back in the next year or so, if not this year!

Ya know, the silly thing is that I put the new one in the same exact spot as the old one. I totally dug up and re-amended the soil to be sure that it took this time. Well, I doubt the really old one will come back. Still, I'll remember that for the next time because at some point I'll want to plant more!

I, too, am glad it wasn't grasshoppers! We do get those from time to time but they are only here for a month or so and never do any damage. Phew!

my grandma used to say hither and yon alllll the time! We even had stuffed animals that were named hither and yon. Memories...

I think I am posting more now that it is so cold out. I really wanna get more work done outside but I'm cold and getting rained/slushed/snowed on! I guess that is what jackets are for.

The weather is going to be a high of 42 tomorrow...I can do that. I guess that is what sweaters and jackets and gloves are for...

I AM happy for the water. I love when nature waters the plants for me :)

...making plans for tomorrow's gardening...
J.