I've never heard of pinching back buds. I have a young 3 year old peony which came up with a huge number of flowers this 3rd year. Thank goodness because I got this plant on those end of season type sales. it looked like it was dying.. so I took pity on it. Now it rewards me with a terrific spray of flowers. I also purchased a brand new peony as a root earlier this year. To my surprise it actually gave me a bud this year - and it's beautiful. I am looking foward to it's next show. ianna

Just a few weeks ago I was asking similar question on another forum, but my newly planted (fall 2015 ) plants have quite a few buds - 2 to 7 with everything in between in fact on different ones. One bud is perfectly fine, a few one are fine as well, just cut the flowers off right after they are done so they do not produce seed. I previously had plants with as many as 3 and they were fine afterwards. I got rid of some of my buds by the way - the most numerous ones.

What a wonderful surprise. Enjoy and post a pic if it blooms.

We are always behind because of the ocean. I always say we’re two weeks behind, but I don’t know where I came up with that figure. I’m actually not sure. I should actually try to really chart it out on the New England forum. Our spring/summer will come later, but winter will come later, too. In fall the warmer ocean beats back the cold weather. On that same note, living here has really emphasized how little your zone tells you. My same zone exists in the mountains of the Southeast and across the middle of Kansas, and in summer those places are hot hot hot and humid humid humid. They also have a much longer summer. Our average high in July and August are in the 70’s, and people say we do have four seasons here: Fall, Winter, Spring, and July 4th. Summer is fleeting! The variations in the zone didn’t really hit home until I moved here. We had an uncooperative April. Everything in our area is a bit late. Forsythias were at least two weeks late this year and in other places of New England.