Hi. I had great luck with tree peonies from www.dutchbulb.com I recently moved to Texas and had to leave them in Illinois when we sold the house. I am ordering some again. The two I had were beautiful. Most magnificent blooms I have ever seen. They were..Shimanishiki and kamatanishiki... you can find them at the site I gave you. Click on favorite perennials..and go to tree peonies. They have specials where you can get an assortment. I think you will be happy with these. They get pretty large so space them accordingly. Hope this helps you.. I also love peonies. Happy Blooming.. Sandi

Scott, I noticed that too. I love Royal Hillbilly and think it has superior flavor and production when compared to regular Hillbilly. Now, I'll tell you more about Royal Hillbilly than you probably want to know. Hillbilly itself has been around a long time and is a bi-color (sort of yellowish-orangeish streaked with pinkish-purplish splotches) from West Virginia. Darrell Merrell selected Royal Hillbilly from a patch of Hillbilly plants he grew out from seed given to him by a gardener from Collinsville, OK, named Ruth Marcum. She, in turn, got her seeds from her brother, Ralph Miller, who lived in Ohio. When Mr. Merrell grew out the seeds he got from Ruth Marcum back in the 1990s, he got plants with three distinctive types of tomatoes. He selected the one he felt had the best flavor and productivity and grew it out for several years to stabilize it and select the best plants each year from which to save seeds. Then he began offering the seeds through Seed Savers Exchange, and sold the plants every spring. Royal Hillbilly has a different coloring from regular Hillbilly--it is a deep pink tomato with just the slightest tinge of purple to it, hence his choice of the name "Royal". In the mid-2000s Darrell found Royal Hillbilly to be his tastiest tomato and his best producer, and it slowly found its way into some commercial seed catalogs. The flavor is hard to describe, but it is outstanding. It is a very sweet tomato with a bit of a tangy tartness. If I had to rank the flavor, I'd say it ranks up there in the top 5 in flavor along with Brandywine Sudduth, Cherokee Purple, Black Krim and True Black Brandywine on my "best flavor list". Wait, add Black Cherry to that list and make it the Top Six. In my garden it is a fairly early producer although its DTM is supposed to be in the 80-90 day range. It is a pretty heavy producer. It is on my permanent grow list, and I can't imagine ever finding a tomato that would knock it off 'The List'. I got my seed from Baker Creek. Royal Hillbilly has been on The Tomato Man's (and later The Tomato Man and Daughter's) Top Ten List for several years, so if anybody wants it and they don't want to grow it from seed themselves, they should be able to get it in April from The Tomato Man and Daughter in Jenks. I grow about half the tomatoes on Darrell's Top Ten list and need to try some of the others, because I like every one of his Top Ten that I've tried. Dawn

I'm amazed! I thought I had them all (laugh!). I'm surprised no one mentioned Raintree Nursery, they are in Washington State and Online. I've been working on an edible landscape and they have a huge fun selection of excellent quality. Prices are pretty close to average. The horticulture staff is excellent. The customer service is very personal (can you tell I like them?)lol... I do occasionally put up with Gurney because of their bargains, especially if you wait until the last minute - really cheap stuff , good if you're landscaping five acres of wilderness. If you call the regular phone number you can get a real person. If you e-mail customer service you can lock into a real person - but there doesn't seem to be any hort people on staff and their 800 number is a phone bank in India. Fruit trees (and I have an orchard full), I have ordered from Raintree and Starks. Starks has great quality and great hort staff. For flowers, I pretty much stick to bulbs because I need for them to naturalize... I just received my first order from White Flower Farm and the quality looks good. Bluestone is expensive but their quality is outstanding. Thanks for all the leads!

Tiziana and Portland, flattering, but thanks. Unfortunately I'm not disciplined enough to keep a journal, just occasional effusions like this one. Bart, I figured I'd hear from you when you were ready. I hope you had a good Christmas, and that you're finding ways to make the arthritis more manageable. "But at my back I always hear/Time's winged chariot coming near" is true of our gardening, too. I'm becoming seriously concerned about water here. We had only light rains in the fall after our normal summer drought, no precipitation at all in December, and there's none in the two week forecast. Do, yes, oh do give thought to a section of woodland garden: it's so charming! I don't know another word for it. Also somewhat less Sysiphian than a sunny garden, at least if you don't have a lot of brush and dead wood to clean up at the start. After that the trees themselves aid in brush suppression, and they supply organic matter. What a triumph of biological organisation a wood is. I'm getting quite curious to see your garden, and wood, and would love for you to see mine, though we're at one of the year's two low points, of course. Starting in March (for the wood; the big garden is tattily ugly until April) things start to liven up. I imagine you're on the same schedule, perhaps slightly earlier.