The chances are enormous that you simply buried dead plants. First of all, the things you planted are programmed by nature to start growing in the spring. If perchance there was some life and they do sprout and put up leaves, very likely they will be interrupted in their growth cycle by winter and not make a come back next spring. No point in digging them up, that won't help a thing. I gather they were cheap? Believe me there was a reason they were!! Consider it a lesson learned... 1. never buy plants in a box or package from a discount store. 2. Never buy bare root plants after about the 2nd week in June at the latest....mid may is better. 3. you get what you pay for. You may get a few glads out of the mix....but very likely you have added some expensive organic matter to your soil. Linda C

Debbie, Do you have a room that stays cooler in winter? I'm in Milwaukee and have had very good luck with my intermediate cym, outside from mid-May through October and then in a very cool room in the Winter. It is a cool growing cym. This room is only heated in the evening when we are in it. During the day the temps run from 55-60 (heat does come in through the open doorway to the kitchen) but probably even cooler in the corner with the plant. That corner is the East/NorthEast corner of the room and has windows on both walls. There are cool growing cyms and warmer growing cyms. Which do you want to grow? I also have a cym golden elf, which is considered a mini although it's not that small and is a warmer growing plant. It sits on my dresser, right in front of a southwest window in Winter and held up very well this Winter and has now put out 7 new growths. Soon, it will go outside too, when all of my plants go out. These are probably my favorite orchids, although they are larger and so I am very limited with how many I can have. But when they bloom.....what a show! That intermediate bloomed from Thanksgiving until after New Years. Eight huge spikes! Susan

You can really do either....move the hostas and plant the peony, or pot the peony and move everything in the fall. First, I've never had any hosta skip a beat that we moved before it came up. I just take my time to find the root ball in the soil and carefully dig it out. They've always come up in their new home as if nothing happened to them...and for that reason, it's my favorite time to move them. You can usually spot them in the soil from either last year's foliage, and stems....or in the case that you cleaned up well, they will show little "hairy" brown plant matter at their centers from last year's eyes. Gingerly dig farther out than you think you need to, to discover how far out their roots are going before you put a big shovel in. Once you know how far out they go, you can circle around that line quite easily. Regarding peonies....they actually do not like to be moved in the spring. I always wait until fall to plant/transplant a peony....but mine are never bareroot and you must plant yours now either into the pot or in the ground, so you may as well put them in the ground where you want them. IF they were in a pot right now, I would advise waiting to plant the peony until the fall. However, the bareroot situation sort of forces you to go ahead and plant now. ( People do this all the time with great success...that's why peony are often sold bareroot, even in big box stores.) If for some reason you decide to pot them, it is no problem. I have grown peonies in pots and overwintered them in the backwoods...they do fine and have been 100% neglected in those backwoods. They are a very tough plant. I've even had them grow up from a tiny piece of root left somewhere in a near empty pot. I recommend that you go over to the peony forum and study how to plant them. If peonies are planted too deeply, they can take years to bloom. I've even had some that didn't flourish at all for years, because they were planted too deeply. Hopefully your vendor shared planting info with you, but if not, go by the standard peony planting instructions on the peony forum. Great opportunity to move your hostas! Let us know how it all goes.

You do touch on quite an essential issue there, Nevermore - one which has resonance for strawberry growers or those of us who foolishly persist in growing meconopsis...and that is the lack of balance (and hormonal and metabolic activity) between root, leaf and bloom. It has always been my practice to sacrifice blooms for a year in order to build up enough root mass able to push enough foliage to feed.photosynthesise a plant to build up reserves over the winter and to maintain sufficient internal resources to carry a plant through the draining period of blooming...and I rather suspect that the hybrid echies are of that ilk. Campanula Kent Belle is another...which can, quite literally, bloom itself to death. Asters too.Not to say NO blooms at all - but for hybrid growers, it might be in order to leave just one bloom on each plant while disbudding any arising stems later in the season...with the promise of a payoff in later years. I used to do this with small own root roses too - the first season after being raised as a cutting, I would only allow one speculative bud to form and disbudd the rest. eta - not totally sure 'disbudd' is a word, especially with 2 ds.