Thanks!

To lizbest1: Thank you again for your help. I'm going to take a picture of what I see and post it tomorrow. I'm pretty sure they're buds! I'm in Long Island, New York (zone 7, I think) and our weather wasn't all that cold this winter, but it was pretty cold. I see my lilacs are budding, so I think that's a good sign. I'm so excited about my peonies (the one I'm going to post is the biggest one I have) as my late husband was not fond of them--he called them "ant flowers" and mowed down all the ones that were here when we bought this house (needless to say, I was very upset)--but since he passed away in 2015, I'm back to planting peonies. I remember them because of my mother having them. I have 4 other ones--not nearly as big or expensive as this one--and I don't see any buds on them yet. They are much smaller, though. The big one (an Itoh) is in a prime location in my garden. It is in a raised bed--so no standing water and great drainage--and sun almost all of the day. I remember from last year that it was very fragrant. When I transplanted it, I cut the plastic pot off so to not disturb it too much. Luckily, I have a pair of Cutco scissors that can cut through most anything. Again, I am so excited!

Msgenie, glad you can plant the flowers you love now. Just wanted to share a tip, if you drink coffee you can sprinkle the used grounds (unflavored coffee only, stuff with sugar in it defeats the purpose) around your peonies and it will deter ants. Itohs don't seem to attract them anyway, nice characteristic! You're certainly correct that you don't want to disturb the roots when you're replanting in spring but you'll definitely want to gently check the eye depth for herbaceous potted peonies, they're rarely at the correct depth in pots, and that can negatively impact flowering. Itohs aren't as fussy, I've seen recommendations from planting them herbaceous depths all the way to tree peony depths which are quite a bit deeper.

Here are the pictures I promised! They're not very good because I couldn't see the screen well because of the sun.

Yep, those are definitely flower buds! The only thing that I'd suggest is to count those buds in case there are too many to support. If the plant has been in the ground for just a year it might put out more buds than it can bring into actually flowering. If you count more than 2 or 3 I'd pinch out the rest, leaving the buds on the most robust stems. Most Itohs will eventually produce side buds as well, if you have any stems that have more than a single bud I'd leave the main one and pinch out the secondaries. Otherwise all of the buds could stop increasing and you'd have none open.

I think you may have the wrong idea about my plant. It is huge and very sturdy. Last year I got lots of flowers from it. I have added a couple of pictures to give you an idea of the actual size. That is a 1 quart bottle of Snapple next to it.

I just checked my peony and it is about 20" tall and the buds look very healthy. So, if I don't hear from you, I'm not going to trim any of the buds. I'm just too anxious to see some flowers!

You're good to leave them! I was assuming your plant was an immature one but that's not the case. Congrats, it's gonna be a beauty! Make sure you post pics when they open!

I'm so glad I can leave the buds on! I'm very anxious to see flowers and when there are some, I will take pictures and post them on this thread.