Every spring one of my favorite things to do is to make a flower arrangement from the peonies and iris in the backyard. I looooooooooooooove peonies and plan on eventually lining the whole driveway in them. This year two of my new varieties bloomed well for the first time. I bought the kind that is just a big poof of yellow anthers in the middle surrounded by a single layer of petals (you can see a pale pink one below just starting to open). Sometimes when I am working in the yard I catch a glimpse of one and they just stop me in my tracks and I have to stand there marveling at their beauty. I don't think they last as long as the regular kind but I'm OK with that, as long as I get a day or two before the rains get them. As I've said in past posts peonies are may favorite flower and I feel the same way about them as Emma Goldman did about her roses.
"I'd rather have peonies on my table than diamonds on my neck."
