Another fail year for Catherine Fonteyn (last flowered in 2010!) and delavyii and emodi over in a blink. Do have seedlings though...so not a total paeony fail...only another 3 years or so to wait.

I am struck with bitter envy, Rouge - a lovely example. Wouldn't mind not owning it as long as I could at least see it.

Mine aren’t photographing great but this is what I have

Charlie’s White

Do Tell

Either Comanche or Gay Paree, any guesses?

****I figured it out!!! It’s Belleville****

I bought three potted from a nursery last fall and 12 bare roots from GH Wild, and all but one of the bare roots have buds. Did not expect buds this year, so I can’t wait to share pics when they open! (Sigh). I love peonies.

Gorgeous! Mine aren't blooming yet, hopefully in another week or so.

My long row of Heirloom Peonies are beautiful as always but there are so many tall grasses growing along with them that I dare not post a photo.

Worst peony season ever! It rained for 8 days straight. I managed to take a few pics and cut a few stems before the deluge. But the rest got ruined. A lot of buds just balled and rotted.

Sarah Bernhardt on steroids!

Gay Paree -- never disappoints, even in the rain.

Yumi -- I'm slowly getting used to this "highlighter yellow." The most money I ever spent on a plant, so I'm learning to like it :)

I like that Yumi!!!

Tree peonies up until now. Waiting for others to pop. However, I've been finding my peony buds/blooms are dwindling year over year so i think it's time to amend the soil!

Festiva, i like your Highlighter Yellow! In the pic above is the perennial I've spent the most on.....my double trillium. I love it, so never regret it! LOL!!!

Wow, Thyme, your trillium was worth every penny. Your whole garden looks spectacular -- such a perfect picture of spring!

So far... shima nishiki tree peony are the only blooms I’ve had, everything else is budding and will be putting on quite a show soon

Mine aren't blooming yet....but the ants don't mind!!!

Umm...yuck I think Kristin. Or maybe those ants do appreciate a beautiful flower ;).

Ants and peonies have a beneficial relationship. It’s a friendly nature thing!

My one and only peony is Blaze. I love it.

(I planted it in 2015...it was not a good specimen...quite small with just an eye or two.)

Cool combination with the white alliums, Rouge!

Strange year...my regular peonies are just budding out now and are delayed by at least two weeks. Only the fern leafed peony is in full bloom. Too bad I can't grow tree peonies in my zone...that first pic is wonderful.

Dr. Alexander Fleming:

and Sarah Bernhardt:

Please excuse the overly melodramatic lighting. My cell phone apparently thought I was JJ Abrams capturing lens flares for his next Hollywood blockbuster. Also, my "the underplanted catmint will support the peonies" attempt worked better on Dr. Alex. Sarah's just a diva.

Auntie Sherry just started blooming for the first time in my garden. Thank you, Woody! It is hard to capture the ethereal pink. The top picture gets it best.

Yours must have started blooming before mine Dinie! I think I saw that pink as we came back up the driveway after taking Cole for his late afternoon walkies today. I’ll have to look closer tomorrow....

eta.... I checked our Aunty Sherry this morning. Your one is definitely earlier than mine! The buds on mine are starting to split to show the color but it’ll be another day or two before they bloom.

Such beautiful pictures! I now have serious peony envy :) I'll have to do some research on tree peonies, itoh and garden types to see which ones would be best for my hardiness zone.

Woody, the buds of AS are so beautiful already. I would have posted a picture, but I could not get the colour right.

I envy your peony pictures. We have had such a dry spring that many of mine did not even set buds.I'm in an extremely dry part of east central Iowa where our lawns started getting brown in late May. A beautiful, slow rain is blessing us today.

Pictures June 9:

'Miss Mary'

Mislabelled at time of purchase. Been suggested it's 'Charlie's White'.

I finally have my first two peonies buds open today! Yea! First is Paula Fay and second is Coral Sunset.

Gdinnie, that Auntie Sherry is beautiful! Jenn, I love your color combination. So perfect together!

Beauties Deannatoby!

Aunty Sherry is definitely my favorite peony now! I thought I'd try out this revised site's photo posting by posting a picture of Aunty Sherry from yesterday:

Two days ago:

'Dublin'

I gotta find space for a yellow petal, white centred peony (such as "Dublin"). It is gorgeous sunnyborders.

Kelway’s Glorious. The blooms are beautiful and enormous, but I cannot detect much of a scent at all. It is supposed to have a strong rose-like scent. I do smell other peonies, even had to move a vase with peony flowers a cousin brought to another room, it was too overpowering. I got it from the RBG sale several years ago. Another misidentification? I also bought an Elsa Sass then. Turned out to be Charlie’s White... The gardens are/were full of misidentified plants. Maybe better now in the renovated areas?

Thanks, Rouge.

Just had a heavy downpour. All our peonies are staked, except 'Dublin'. Dublin's a single Patio Peony ™ and at 2 ft didn't think staking was necessary. And it really is still fine. They do note it has sturdy stems. No stakes or hoops is great by me!

Kelway's Glorious is AMAZING! Wow! On the list, assuming I have room. I bought 14 peonies last year, 2 plants and the rest bare roots from GH Wild in the fall. I cannot believe that EVERY single one of them, even the bare rooted ones, have blooms! So excited. For today:

Above I said a peony was Coral Charm. Wrong. It's actually Coral Sunset. I do have charm but it hasn't opened yet. I've edited the above post to correct the name. A much better picture of Coral Sunset:

Pink Kisses. I think the edges of the petals might lighten up. Will post again if they do:

Mons Jules Elie, but it will probably look better tomorrow. I had to hold it still due to wind.

Coral Sunset is a beauty! I am telling myself I have too many peonies for my small garden. Maybe I will listen to myself, maybe not.

Kelway’s Glorious lives up to its name, and it does look like it should, including the red on the buds, and an initial pink tint, but I want the scent too! Maybe next year? But this is its third year to bloom. Grrr.

Gorgeous blooms everyone! It's great to see blooms from others in the north at this time when mine had been done awhile ago. It's hard not to love peonies with so little care. They provide with such a lavish display of blooms and huge ones at that.

Pink kisses has white kissing its edges now. Also Belleville has opened.

I am a bit surprised by the large range of dates, even in the same hardiness zone, that peony flowers begin to open.

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.

OK, so this seems crazy, but my last peony bloomed this week, a NOID. The echinacea are starting to bloom with maybe 1/5 of them in flower. Seems awfully strange for peonies and echinacea to overlap! The bud in this photo did open yesterday.