Wild rose bushes starting to bloomBut on the plus side, most of my flowers are continuing to grow and flourish. I have 5 peony plants in various stages of growth depending on which flower bed they are located in. The best one has a large number of healthy stems and 6 or 7 big buds. A huge improvement from last year when it grew like crazy, but only had one flower! Although I consider myself a successful and knowledgeable gardener, peonies are not my forte. I tried growing them for many years without too much success.
I lived in Red Deer, AB in the late 1970's and was a beginner gardener. I planted 4 peonies one summer, but never got them to bloom. When I moved 3 years later, I dug them up and moved them with us to a new location, further north in Alberta, planting them again with great care. Although they came up and had lovely greenish red stems every year, they still never bloomed. "You have to wait 3 years", I was told. After 3 years... no flowers. "You planted them too deep", I was told.
I moved again, this time to northern Manitoba, leaving my uncooperative peonies behind. But a few years later I bought another peony (just stubborn, I guess) and I tried again. This peony plant was already blooming when I bought it and it looked great in my flower bed! I was very careful not to plant it too deep. I tried to plant it at exactly the same level as in the pot like the directions stated.
The next spring... nothing came up.... At that point I decided that maybe peonies were not for me. I could grow almost anything else, I told myself, so forget the peonies! Did I listen to my own advice? Not a chance. I guess I saw it as a challenge! So, yes, the following year I bought another peony in full bloom and tried again. That one did come up the following spring, but again, no flowers!
It broke my heart to see the peony bushes next door being ignored and neglected by their owner and still blooming their little hearts out, when here I was, bending over backwards to no avail! Was I trying too hard?
Fate intervened and we ended up retiring and we moved here to this idyllic location at Buffalo Lake. Guess what was in the flower beds here??? Peonies! They bloomed beautifully with no help from me!
The one nearest the house, right close to the pond is doing the best again this year.
Two other peony plants are at the far end of the yard in my 'wild' flower bed. The trees have grown so much there, even in the last 4 years since we have moved here, that the peonies no longer get a lot of sun. Thus they seem to have fewer and fewer buds each spring. I trimmed some of the tree branches last summer to try and improve that.
I got a pleasant surprise one day last summer! I noticed a flash of color one day in behind some of the trees which shade that bed. I ducked under the tree branches and went to investigate. There I discovered one beautiful peony blossom blooming away in the shade! I had not even known that plant was there! At one time it had probably been a sunny location, but now the trees had grown around it.
In the fall I dug that peony out and moved it to the front of that bed. This spring I thought at first that it hadn't survived the winter, but it has sprouted now. I know it likely won't bloom for a couple of years, now that I have transplanted it, but I think it will do far better in its new spot since there is a lot more sun there.
One of the old originals at the north side of that bed is always really slow to sprout shoots. It still has none so far, (June 17), but each year, just as I'm about to give up on it, it does sprout and get a blossom or two, although quite late into July.
I planted another new peony last year too, which I bought at a local green house, (thinking that the above mentioned peony had died...) I think it's called Sara Bernhardt. It came up and got leaves early this spring, but I don't know if it will get buds this year or not. But true gardeners have a huge amount of patience. Like my friend B always says, each year we think that this year we are going to have that perfect garden and that thought gives us energy and incentive to plant and weed and water in expectation. Reality soon sets it some time around July and we make the best of the conditions that Mother Nature has provided and try to enjoy those things that are doing well.
By August we have realized that we don't have the perfect garden this year either and we start thinking and dreaming about what we are going to change next year to have that perfect garden then.
Gardeners are perennial optimists, right Barb!?
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