That is so wonderful, bunti! I will look forward to your peonies blooms.

That is a beautiful plant, why don't you tell us where you bought it. Al

I have got it in local nursery, Roundtree Plantation(My favourite place). I have bought it for $68.

Those blooms are going to dwarf that tree, Bunti! Can't wait to see what it looks like when they open!

Also saw that I had my first bud today on P. Japonica. Seeing lots of teeny, tiny pips on lots of peonies, so looking forward to bloom season!

That is great, Liz! This is one of the reason I love to grow peonies. They can survive almost anything, are not fussy, and pests don't bother them at all. I too look forward to your peonies blooms. I know you got some new beauties planted in your garden last fall. :) I would love to see a pic of your Pastelegance.

I will absolutely post that one if it blooms, Karen. I saw it last spring at the APS convention and it was amazing, the prettiest bloom I've ever seen. I think some of my infatuation with it was the size, though--most of the competition blooms were enormous. They showed varieties I have and mine were puny by comparison, I hope I like Pastelegance as well when it's my garden sized rather than competition....I'm putting out the bulbtone your recommended and azomite today. Most of my plants have barely broken ground. Probably have less than 10 that are more than an inch tall at this point and only the one that I can tell has a bud.

Looking forward to seeing blooms this year! I had lots of buds on a seedling tree peony, we were hit with 24 & 26 degree temps the last couple of nights. I covered them, hope that protected them enough. Several other peonies were up nicely, but I didn't see buds on them. I tried to cover those too. I have several new ones from 2013 that didn't bloom last year. I hope this doesn't set them back again, but most of those are barely out of the ground.

Liz, I really would like to find out the true color of Pastelegance from someone who actually grows it in the garden. Is it light peach? Or peach and cream? It looks like an old fashioned rose. Does it have fragrance?

Nancy, I hope that you will get blooms from those that failed to bloom last year. I do not believe that your peonies would be damaged by the latest freeze if they have hardly grown.

You're right Karen, it does look like an enormous, pale peachy loose rose. I don't think it had much of a scent but it sure was beautiful. The blooms I saw didn't really have any cream in them, just that pale peachy pink.

I did purchase one specifically because of the scent; my daughter who doesn't even like peonies actually bought a stem of Angel Cheeks because she said it smelled so good.

I finally got the Bulbtone and azomite put out today, too. Used all except a handful of an 18 lb bag of bulbtone and probably 20 lbs of azomite. Towards the end I was throwing it on anything with a tag, though! It actually made me appreciate the fact that my daughter pitched such a fit when I wanted to give away her wagon (she's 17 now, would think she wouldn't care!) I put the bags in the wagon and pulled it around the entire yard. Hopefully it'll rain in the next few days or my effort and the fertilizer will be wasted, I didn't have the time or energy to scratch it in around the plants. Quite a few haven't even emerged yet.

Nancy, we have late freezes here in CO every spring. There are a few hybrid peonies that don't deal well with freezing temps after they sprout (Coral Scout and Blonde Vision are 2 that I have that are sold with that warning) but most weather it with no ill effects. The only one I cover is a NOID semi-double that gets really tall every year before the last snows/frosts that tends to drag the ground afterward, doesn't hurt the buds on that one, though. I don't have any tree peonies that bud out early enough to be in danger but it has never hurt the limbs.

One last thing--it's too early to tell for sure but there are some tiny correctly colored seedlings in a few of the pots I planted peony seeds in last summer! I wasn't expecting anything this year and I'll probably have to say it was a false alarm later if they turn out to be weeds but I'm hoping! If they keep growing and looking right I'll take pictures and post them in a few weeks, right now they're so tiny I can't even find them on the screen when I try to take a picture....

Congrats, Liz. I believe they are peony seedlings. When I went to the "Growing Peony from Seeds" lecture, Bob Johnson told us to plant the seeds that he gave us last fall this coming summer or late spring if we do follow the quick method that he taught us. So I am planning to sow the seeds in pots sunk under the soil and hopefully they will sprout next spring.

I also got around to fertilize most of my peonies yesterday. I think the bulb tone really helps because the ones that I fertilized last week seemed to grow nicely already. I am so looking forward to the double fernleaf bloom. After the fertilizer application last week, I saw there are 5 pips poking through today. Hopefully one of them gives me a bloom.

Someday when the price comes down, I would love to get Pastelegance. At $300, it is still too pricey. Hope it will come down to about $75 in a couple years.

I agree Karen and I never would've bought it at that price if I hadn't seen the blooms at the APS convention. I actually worked several days of overtime to justify the purchase and I sure was sweating it until I saw some growth! We're supposed to get snow Thursday night into Friday, probably a good thing to get that fertilizer down around the roots, I'll just cover the few that are frost sensitive and the 2 with buds (my red double fernleaf has a single bud again this year).

I think it is wishful thinking on my part that it will go down to $75 in a few years. It is a very unique peony in that the color is special and the first in its color class for a herbaceous peony. I bet the stem is also very sturdy. There are so many wonderful traits in this peony that it is no surprise that it demands such a price. Are you going to try to grow seeds from this plant?

When planting the double fernleaf, did you add azomite?

I didn't but I did add some peony fertilizer that I bought from Adelman's that fall. I got those roots from Fina, I was hoping for a bigger plant because the roots were so nice. I'm wondering if fernleafs are going to grow here in our soil or if I need to amend more with sand. We have a pretty dry summer but when the snow melts in the spring we get quite a bit of standing water....

I'm not very good at planning to plant any particular seeds! My first peonies from seed were happy accidents that just appeared in my front yard. It's probably the shadiest and dampest area that I have them growing at all so it shocked me when I noticed they were growing. I moved those seedlings last fall, they were 2 years old at the time, and did see that I had teeny tiny pips coming up from them in the new area. I probably will spread the seed when it blooms, move them back up to the "happy accident" area. I'm not even sure what bloom time Pastelegance is supposed to be, if it needs help to be viable or if I can let nature take its course....When it blooms, it's advertised as often having multiple blooms first year in place, I'd be happy to collect seed and send them to anyone who wants to try. Not just from that one but any I have that have viable looking seed.

You can't tell from this pic but my red double fernleaf HAS 4 BUDS!!!! I looked at it closely and could see all 4 but it's starting to rain, they're tiny and I didn't have my phone outside anyway. I'll take another picture when they get a bit bigger. Doing a happy dance that it's getting bigger/more mature! Don't know what that reddish this is off to the side but it's not a bud....not attached to the peony, just something in the mulch. Makes the picture misleading, huh? You can almost imagine you can see a 2nd bud just above the red thing though!

That sounds more like it. I was really surprised to hear that you had only one bud from this plant in previous post as it is going into the second year. I think the red double fernleaf has such beautiful flowers. Congrats, Liz! Someday hopefully our fernleafs will look like Jerry's clumps of fernleafs in Allthingsplants.

I sure hope so, Karen! His pictures were what made me look for fernleafs in the first place.

Here is my Shima Nishiki tree peony flowers. They are awesome. Flowers are bigger than my hand.

I agree, those flowers are huge and gorgeous! I can't believe that the little tree produces such huge and that number of blooms. That is incredible!

That is amazing, Bunti! Do you keep yours in pots or will you plant that one in the ground? I wish we could do peonies in pots here but the winter's too rough....You're OBVIOUSLY doing something right!!

all my peonies were in ground. We put our house for sale, so I have taken all my peonies from the ground and planted them in the pots. I have many more blooms to come this year.

in the first photo you can see few peonies in pots.

Pastelegence has 2 buds! Still tiny and might not make it to bloom but I'm hoping!

That is so awesome, Liz! I am so excited for you. I would so love to see any photos of their blooms.

I'll certainly be sharing them, Karen! So excited, I hope mine are half as impressive as the ones I saw last spring were! Maybe the azomite and Bulb Tone will help.....

my tree peony buds were lightly touched by the frost a few nights ago but the herbaceous will probably bloom this week.

Can't wait to see the pictures, Dave! With that many buds it's going to be beautiful!

My another tree peony getting ready to bloom.

My another tree peony Bloom(Kinkaku).

It is gorgeous, bunti. Congrats!

Thank you. More blooms on the way.