Peonies

I visited Hitch Lyman's garden in Trumansburg, NY. on May 8th. It was one of the Garden Conservancy's Open Gardens, as I mentioned previously. His Temple Nursery is the only U.S. nursery that specializes in snowdrops. The snowdrops were long gone, but lilacs and species peonies were blooming. Hitch Lyman has a wonderful Greek Revival [...]

Spent 2 hours cutting dead stuff down (mostly peony foliage), revealing weeds that will have to be pulled another day. Sigh.

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 [...]

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 [...]

Canada thistle weaves throughout the peony bedObservant 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 [...]

'Bev' was planted in fall 2002 and has filled out substantiallyPeonies 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. She also grew [...]

It took a mere seven days to shed that foot of snow and get back to our regularly scheduled program.Snow in April is really a joke. There is no way it can win, though it can cause damage.And it has been instrumental in teaching this gardener patience and perseverance. If I knew the Latin for [...]

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. One of the [...]

I'd like you to meet three special friends of mine: Aimee Bev Rozella I purchased 'Aimee' (actually 'Aimee's Pink') from Brent and Becky's Bulbs in autumn of 2000. It has taken her a while to build up strength, though I suspect if last year hadn't been so bad for spring flowers (with temps in the [...]