Posts tagged as:

peony

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day June 2008

June 15, 2008

Poppies, peonies, and iris: the three Grandes Dames of June
In a cold climate, the gardening season is shorter and more compressed. By the time the spring flowers get going, boom! it’s summer. Consider this: on May 29th we had our last frost. The next day it hit 80F (27C), which we reckon to be summery, [...]

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The Truth About Organic Gardening: Book Review

March 11, 2008

If you can have only one of Jeff Gillman’s books, The Truth About Organic Gardening: Benefits, Drawbacks, and the Bottom Line is the one to get. Don’t get me wrong, The Truth About Garden Remedies is an interesting and informative read, but it mostly tells you what doesn’t work, or what only “sorta” works. The [...]

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Canada thistle, the plague of my peonies

June 23, 2007

Canada thistle weaves throughout the peony bed

Observant readers may have noticed the prickly-leaved weed sidling up to ‘Rozella’ in my last post. That dastardly villain is Canada thistle, aka Cirsium arvense, and it is one nasty customer. According to the University of California Cooperative Extension,
Once established, Canada thistle spreads rapidly by horizontal roots, up to [...]

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Peonies: Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

June 19, 2007

‘Bev’ was planted in fall 2002 and has filled out substantially

Peonies remind me of my paternal grandmother. Whether it was an evening with her bridge group, Sunday Mass, or a family cookout, she always dressed fashionably, including fully applied makeup and perfume. To be called glamorous was a compliment she always appreciated.

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What’s Wrong with My Peonies?

August 1, 2006

This spring, I had the most beautiful peonies in the world.

I was especially taken with the foliage of ‘Bev,’ the one on the far right. It was a smoky purple. The flowers were spectacular, too, but I never managed to get a photograph this year. You can see them, here, though.

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