Excellent firewood, comparable to White oak or Hickory. Splitting is easy, if you're not trying to split a crotch. I do it every year with an axe, a maul and wedges. If the trunk is clear, maybe you could get some lumber for small projects - quartersawn is best.

The one in the last shot, that had the trunk cleared doesn't look as good as the one above it that still has a wrapping of dead leaves. In my area the palm - this time it really is one - that has a similar zone of half dead leaves, between the trunk and the completely fresh looking leaves on top is windmill palm. While it is understandable that many would find this ring of partly dead leaves objectionable when people here skin the local palms up they look scalped also. In other words if every browning leaf was cut off of the bigger of the two yuccas in the last picture the tufts of leaves left afterward would be too small, in proportion to the trunks.

What color is your tree peony in question? I ask this because digital cameras are not always very accurate with some of the reds. Yours looks more purple. Is that the case? Shima-nishiki is not purple at all. Below are a couple of pics of mine. The above picture is from last year, 2017. As you can see, it is not purplish. The next picture is from this year, a few days ago. In this one, you can see that there is a solid color flower, but it is red. It had evidently reverted back to its sport parent variety, Taiyo. It had 2 solid reds this year with 3 striped ones. I have seen roses do this that are sports also. They can revert back to their sport parents sometimes with incompletely colored flowers. The flowers on yours also look like they have more petals than mine, but that can vary between flowers. I have no idea what you have there, but it is pretty no matter what it is. Maybe this will help in some small way.

compare to these: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pink+hawthorn+tree&t=ffcm&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hawthorn+leaves&t=ffcm&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images dont know where you are.. but apple would have bloomed a month or 2 ago .... ken