Although I've often thought about planting peonies, I never have done so, so I'm afraid I can't help with the blight question. You seem to be having trouble posting your photos though. I might be able to help you with that. The url to your web album that shows your 4 pictures is http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/578192480GvkIsB and people can click on each thumbnail to see full sized photos. The code that you would use to make a photo appear within your message in this forum is as follows but with the all the spaces (except the space between img and src) removed and the url of the photo in place of XXXXX. However when I tried it out in the preview function with the url to your first photo, it does not appear. I think the web hosting site you are using will not permit posting photos on other websites using their band width. Thus I think you are limited to posting links to your web albums. I hope this helps. Sorry I'm no help with the peony disease.

Hopefully your peonies are ok. It is not good to mulch that deep over a newly planted peony crown. You can put mulch that deep or deeper in the area surrounding the crown but putting more than maybe an inch on newly planted peonies can lead to the crown rotting. It would be a good idea for you to carefully remove the mulch from where you planted the peonies then replace around the plants. You may be able to see pink or white buds emerging from the ground already. As to when peonies should emerge is up to the individual peony as some will emerge early but the flower buds will not expand for at least a month. Some will emerge with flower buds that look like they should bloom at any moment. Don't be too surprised if you have no blooms this year and only a few next year. Some peonies take a while to develop the root structure necessary to support blooms.

Hello Marshall, This is taken from the Pacific Rim Native Plant Nursery: "Paeonia anomala Linnaeus subsp. anomala. æ°çÂÂèÂÂè¯(Ã¥ÂÂäºÂç§Â) Xin jiang shao yao (Yuan ya zhong) (Chinese). The flowers of this herbaceous treasure ~ usually one per stem ~ are crimson with golden filaments and anthers and about 10 cm (4') across. The highly dissected leaves are dark green above and paler below; with a hand lens you can see a line of bristles along the main veins. At left you see a possible hybrid (truth in advertising!) that looks just like the species. Native to Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Siberia in Russia, and Xinjiang in China. Height 50-100 cm (20-40'). Zone 5, perhaps colder. "Paeonia anomala subsp. veitchii (Lynch) D.Y. Hong & K.Y. Pan. Woodward's peony. å·Â赤è Chuan shi shao (Chinese). This is the low-growing beauty formerly known as Paeonia veitchii var. woodwardii (Stern & Cox) Stern. No matter its label, this is 'a delightful garden plant and easy to grow in any soil or situation.' ~ F.C. Stern in A Study of the Genus Paeonia. Pink flowers ~ several per stem ~ with purple filaments and golden anthers open in June above grey-green, dissected leaves on a shrub much shorter than the typical 90-cm (35') anomala subsp. veitchii. Native to fairly moist sites: alpine and subalpine meadows, scrub and forest openings in much of western China. At left you see it growing wild in Sichuan province. Introduced to the West from seeds collected at Choni [now Jone] Lamasery in Gansu province, in 1912, by George Fenwick-Owen. Named for the man who first grew it from those seeds, Robert Woodward of Arley Castle, Worcestershire, who died in action in 1915. Height 30 cm (12'). Zone 6." Check the photos associated with the descriptions above. I hope that helps. Here is a link that might be useful: Pacific Rim Native Plant Nursery

I planted them "up"(to the best of my knowledge!)...some of the roots were oddly shaped..thickened and/or contorted, or the eyes were growing kinda sideways so I planted them in the direction that the majority of the eyes were headed(up)...on a couple of them, there may have been a tiny bud or two that could have gone either way, and on those, I just planted according to what the majority seemed to be doing...So, do thes Peony roots always have a definite "up" or "down"?..most of mine were very obvious which way was up, but a couple of them were juts oddballs!...(and thats what I meant by the thickened part of some roots being exposed after watering, the ones that had a shape that left part of the root up at the surface)...Now, I might be second guessing myself though!...I just put them in, so I could always uncover one or two and make sure make sure I really did them right...I just kinda made a groove in the dirt the same shape as the root(lets pretend it looks like a banana or large piece of Ginger root may be better) and laid it horizontally in the groove...and then packed dirt up around the sides and a small amount of dirt over the top...I did not plant them vertically..(uh oh...was I supposed to??..I could really use a visual picture of a dormant root being properly planted...I guess you can tell I am a real newbie!...haha)....thanks for any thoughts..GardenLove