How pretty! Thanks for sharing. Our peonies are pretty much done now - unfortunately the days and days of rain shortened their season a lot.

I LOVE that single pink - I'm guessing you don't have a name for it...? (she asks hopefully....)

Dee

Actually I do have a name for that one... I'm pretty sure it's Auntie Sherry. I got it at the link below a few years ago. I haven't seen it since. I have another nice single pink one at the side of the house and I have no idea what that one's name is!

Here is a link that might be useful: Gardenimport - peony Auntie Sherry

ooh, thanks woody! I'll have to look into that. And I'm still wondering why I don't have a Bowl of Beauty....

Dee

I've about a dozen established peonies in my various beds and love them every year for their fragrant blooms and reliable habit. They all bloom & flop in June each year but to savor that wonderful, heavenly fragrance, I'm happy to ignore the flopping. I have 'Festiva Maxima,' 'Shirley Temple' & Sarah Bernhardt that I know of along with a number of unknowns planted by my brother 30+ years ago.

woodyoak - thanks for sharing those wonderful pictures. The early season garden is such a refreshing time of year.

Quite beautiful, Woodyoak. Like Dee, I particularly like Auntie Sherry with its varying colors as it ages.

Beautiful, woody! Do any of those single peonies have a nice fragrance?

Lovely photos! The peonies have just gone by here too, and I miss them already. Even though they flop, I get to enjoy 2 weeks of multiple vases of fragrant voluptuous peonies in the house, and cut a couple for other people too.

I have the same pink one as your first pic - not sure but I've thought it was Bowl of Beauty too, or maybe Gay Paree? Your pics make me think I should get a couple of single peonies. Are they fragrant?

The poppies are gorgeous!

I just sniffed them all when we came back from walking the dogs... The do have a scent, but nothing remarkable - nowhere near the sweet, heady scent of the doubles! So, it's probably a good idea to plant them near a color-compatable double for scent purposes.

Lovely! I can't imagine a garden without at least a peony or two :0)

Beautiful pics! I love peonies... I have two large ones (one soft pink and ken white) and they both flop terribly. All the rain hasn't helped that either. Also have about 6 smaller ones that are upright and aren't falling apart. Pale pinks,hot pink and red ones. I love their fragrance - I just wish they wouldn't flop because after all this rain the blooms are goners.

Flopping is an issue with the doubles for sure - but I got tired of flimsy peony rings and, in 2011, made my own, sturdier ones using flexible copper tubing, 14" sections of copper pipe, copper T connections and some wooden pegs to fit inside the copper tubing to join it in a circle. They work great for holding the plants up. The shiny copper rapidly fades to brown and pretty much vanishes against the foliage. By using longer - or shorter - sections of pipe you can make the support as tall or short as you need. Since the pipes are just inserted in the T connectors without being 'glued' in any way, it's easy to swap out the pipes for a different height if you need to. I leave the rings in place in the winter and they're sturdy enough not to be flattened by the snow.

The materials:
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A ring complete exceft for joining the circle (that's not me in the photo....)
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a ring in place in the driveway border:
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If you look closely on the left side of the picture at the top of the thread of the Bowl of Beauty (?) in the driveway border , you can see a bit of the support ring.

Such a GREAT idea! I've been thinking of what I can do to support these - I'm sooo going to make some for next year!

At the price of copper, how much do you think it cost on average to make each hoop that you have shown? I would need about 50 hoops. Looking for ideas. Very pretty hoops though.

Count me as another fan of the single peonies - lovely!

I like those copper rings as well. I used to used those grid-style supports but timing was key to get them set up as the stems are coming up. Now I use the rings where you buy two halves where each is a semi-circle and you join two together to form a full circle. I like that you can add these at any time. For some of my big peonies I use three of them. I've wired the legs together for added strength and I leave them in place year-round. That helps a lot. Plus, I am only adding single or semi-double peonies at this point. No more floppers for me!

The copper rings would be too visible for me. I use large (about 18 inches across) green coated wire rings with grids for the 4 big peonies in the front garden. The rings were expensive, but good quality and I've used them for about 7 years now.

These work pretty well and they are practically invisible once the Peony fills out. But you do have to install them when the stalks are about 1 foot high and feed them through the grid which is tedious. I also adjust them a little as the peony grows and they keep the stalks in place after bloom.

Nevertheless if it rains, double blooms still flop, so I don't think I would buy any more doubles either.

I find the flimsy wire rings are pretty expensive around here. I made the rings two years ago so I'm not sure what copper pipe prices have done since then... At the time, I figured each ring cost about $10-12 dollars in materials so that wasn't too bad. I still have a fair bit of the tubing left since it came in a rather long coil - if I wanted to make more rings now, I'd just need the leg pipes , the T connectors and the little bit of wood to join the tubing in a ring. I made about 6 supports for our garden and gave a few away to friends. The rings are not at all very visible once the foliage/stems get above the rings in spring. The copper loses the shine and turns brown pretty quick which helps it disappear. If the still brown pipes of the copper fence and gate we made a few years ago is any indication, it will be many years before the pipes turn verdigris (which might make them more visible perhaps.)

I like the cascade-look of the Bowl of Beauty (?) peonies so keep the 'leg' pipes at 14" (~12" above ground) so the flowers can arch down but not spawl in the dirt!

Ah, that's cheaper than I thought for the copper. The price is probably a wash compared to other types then. Certainly the copper is the more stylish alternative, plus it's recyclable whenever you are done with it.

I need to have a pep talk with my peonies. They don't bloom very well so maybe if I gave them really sturdy supports they would realize I have higher expectations for them. :)

My fool-proof method for preventing flopping: (works like a charm)

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Kevin

Smart thinking Kevin but I never cut my peony blooms to bring indoors. I want to enjoy my garden, aesthetically, olfactorily (sp?) and visually, actually IN my garden and don't care to bring it inside the house. Can't cite a specific reason but flowers indoors have never held any appeal for me [just a personal choice here, no editorializing intended]. I am impressed with those sturdier support rings and may issue a challenge to my I-love-to solve-garden-problems son to construct something similar for my own use.

Peonies are and always will be valued in my perennial beds no matter how they behave. What's not to love? Gorgeous foliage that's unaffected by pests from early on right through frost, gorgeous, fragrant blooms & little to no maintenance. At most I dump woodstove ashes on them in January each year.

I am addicted to peonies. I don't think I could ever have enough.. these ones I bought from a table outside someone's house around the corner so I've no idea what they are.

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