Peonies Gallery: Thank you Grandma for such a lovely gift!
A Peonies Gallery post and a few other blooms thanks to my Grandma! Along the south side of our 100 year old farm house my Grandma planted a row of peonies several decades ago. As the years went by and the health of my grandparents declined the peonies over grew with grass and were almost lost. I snatched as many as I could find nearly ten years ago and moved them to my mom’s house where they actually flourished until she moved to another home and we moved here to the old farm house. It only seemed right for me to dig them up, once again, and bring them back home where they belonged.
UPDATE: December 15th, 2017. Joe and I are now divorced. I will not be deleting blog posts like this one as it is still a diary to some extent of my past and that still matters to me. I wish I had been more honest about how things were going to you guys here on the blog… I thought things would get better. There was always something: once this happens then he won’t be so angry… But, eventually, he ran out of excuses and I had to face my reality that I was wrong about Joe in every way possible. Grandma’s house is completely mine so now it can actually become what I dreamed it would be on all those late nights alone when I was renovating it. Happiness does not always come the way we expect it to (sometimes it even takes a broken heart to get us there) but I still believe in happy endings!
But the south side of our house is now our dog kennel enclosed by a privacy fence so that was no longer the ideal location for them because no one would get to see them! So, for lack of better alternatives, I moved them from mom’s old house to the outside of our fence on the west side, along our driveway. I was SO worried about those peonies, but they came back for us and now, in their second summer here, they are flourishing. And, to my absolute amazement, my Grandma’s peonies just kept coming on the south side of the house in the dog kennel too. I really thought I had got them all the first time! So, the first spring we were here I moved them all (again) to join the rest on the west side of the fence and then this spring came around and I had even more to move! No complaints of course 🙂 I am absolutely thrilled that they keep coming up along the house where my Grandma initially planted them. I suspect I will have even more to move next spring!
So far I have found peonies to be hardy and tough. Every time I moved them I figured this was probably when I would kill them because they meant so much to me. But, every time, they come back and I sigh in relief. So I’ve moved dozens of peony plants over the years and, most of the time, I’ve moved them in the spring but I’ve also moved them in the fall as well. Peonies have a big root and on that root there is a little “eye” (a pink bud where the plant is starting). I plant them so the “eye” is just under the soil. When I dig them up I take A LOT of dirt and keep it all in tact as much as I can until I get them to where they’re going then I carefully pull them a part and give them a little room from each other. When you transplant peonies they will surprise you by just how many plants are in a group; sometimes dozens!
You will see in the photos three bunches of big bushes and all the blooms on them: those are the “oldest” plants – the peonies I moved from here to my mom’s house and then back to here, so they’ve been in the ground for two full summers now. (They did give us a few blooms last year too which surprised me because I had moved them the fall of the year before.) Between them (which you can barely see now because they’re so big!) are three more bunches of plants that I moved from the south side of the house this spring. So, next year, those should catch up to their big brothers and maybe bloom for us too!
I never expect peonies to bloom the first year after being moved and I don’t expect much of the year after that either but I have found that if you plant them in the fall you can expect to see some buds the next summer. Every year peonies are in the ground the better they will do! I have never fed my peonies anything and, when I transplanted, all I did was dig a hole and replace the majority of the dirt that was going around them with fresh black dirt. But that’s it, I’ve never done anything else and they’ve done just fine. They are great to mulch over too because they’ll push right up through the mulch!
As far as I know I do not have different kinds of peonies so the different colors really surprised me. I did a little research and what I found is that an individual plant won’t change color but its seedlings can! So I may have all the same kind of peony but there is no reason that they can’t all be different colors! Very fun 🙂 Honestly, I think the white are my favorites, if you look close you can see the magenta color “lines” deep inside. But, of course, it is not necessarily the blooms that hold my heart but the absolutely incredible smell! I am SO excited that the blooms now are not all that we will be enjoying this year as there are many little buds still developing! I put up the little white fence out of desperation last year to help hold them up but, obviously, I will need to come up with some more support for them lol
Besides the peonies many of the perennial flowers I moved last year from around the yard are beginning to bloom and do well too! (Its a big relief to me as I really wanted to save as many of my Grandma’s flowers that I could.) her honeysuckles are the biggest plants I have ever seen outside of state forests! In the end though I have to admit that it is her peonies that are my absolute favorite. Thank you Grandma for such a wonderful gift 🙂
I’m Tarah!
There is nothing I love more then making something new and usable again that someone else would have thrown out or torn down. Find out more about me, how I renovated my Grandparents’ 100 year old house and how I am a total DIY fanatic by checking out The story behind Storyhardt Farm You can also find out more about the amazing Grandma behind this blog who moved in to this old farmhouse with my Grandpa nearly 70 years ago!
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39 Comments on "Peonies Gallery: Thank you Grandma for such a lovely gift!"
I love peonies! I have a dark burgundy one that ages to a deep fuschia color from my Mama’s house. I’ve been able to take divisions from it and give to my sisters and daughters to remember her by.
A couple of Mother’s Days ago, my HH gifted me an Ito peony that starts out dusky salmon that ages to a beautiful soft pink. I do a happy dance every spring when I see it’s made it through another winter!
Lace what a wonderful gift to your sisters and daughters for them to remember your Mama by! I’m hoping to gather as many perennial cuttings as I can from all of my family members, a garden of memory blooms sounds just about as wonderful as it gets. Thanks for coming by!
Lace what a wonderful gift to your sisters and daughters for them to remember your Mama by! I’m hoping to gather as many perennial cuttings as I can from all of my family members, a garden of memory blooms sounds just about as wonderful as it gets. Thanks for coming by!
Oh, I love peonies! Beautiful pictures! 🙂
Thanks Lina!
Really Enjoyed your post. Getting back to nature and basic healthful eating.. We are trying to get back to the life we grew up with. The simpler family ties that binds us together is this world. To many gadgets that keeps us away from the most important things in our lives. time with Family and friends.. Enjoy your life. Sally
Thanks Sally!
Peonies are my favorite flower and I really enjoyed looking at your photos of the beautiful peonies that your Grandma left you.–such a gorgeous legacy!
Thanks Lisa, they’re my favorites too!
Beautiful flowers! Even better is the memory attached to them. 🙂
Thank you!!
Absolutely beautiful!! Peonies are one of my all time favourites 🙂
Thanks Sam, they’re my favorites too!
I love Peonies and have some of the same colors. So glad that they came back to grandmas house!! Thanks for sharing with SYC.
hugs,
Jann
Thanks Jann!
Peonies are such beautiful flowers! I never see them growing down here in the south though. (I live in the panhandle of FL.) I’ve always assumed we were to hot for them but I wonder if, since you have found them to be so hardy, if they could survive with enough water and some shade? They’re one of my favorites and I usually only get to enjoy them through beautiful pictures like yours.
PS Visiting from Paula’s Weekend Blog party
Hey Marty, honestly I don’t see why peonies wouldn’t do well just about anywhere, they are so hardy because I’m not much of a gardener and they’re even doing well for me! Thanks so much for coming by and reading 🙂
That is wonderful that you are ale to move them so much! I love peonies and have one large planing of them in our garden but I really wish I had more. My grandmother had lots of them all around her yard… she just past away this April and this post makes me think of her so much.
I am so sorry to hear about your grandma’s passing 🙁 I don’t think we ever really get over losing the matriarchs of our families. I am so fortunate to have saved my Grandma’s peonies and that they’re doing well! Hope you have a great weekend!
Peonies are one of my favorite flowers. If only the blooms would last longer! Congrats on the great yield and thanks for sharing at the #happynowlinkup!
Leslie, I totally agree I really wish they lasted longer! We just had a big storm here and all of my big blooms are on the ground 🙁 Oh well, at least we got to enjoy them for a little while!
They really are so beautiful! I think that they are even more special with so much history!
Thank you Mary!
Those are gorgeous! Now I know the next perennial I need to plant. Beautiful pictures. Sounds like your grandmother wants those peonies where she started them, LOL!!
lol I think so too! Thanks for coming by Carole!
I really enjoyed your post. I planted 2 peonies in this spring, my first. I’m excited to know that they multiply. Please do a post on how you transfer them this fall.
Hey Rhonda, I will definitely do a post about that this fall when I move the rest of my peonies to where they belong with the others! Thank you for coming by!
Hi! I’m one of the co-hosts from the Welcome Home Wednesday Link up. I love peonies, they’re my favorite flowers and I have two that I want to move to my new house so it’s good to know that yours have done well in the moves you’ve done! Thank you so much for sharing this!
Thank you for coming by and reading Leslie! Have a great week!
What a wonderful gift from grandma. My Mother in Law had a green thumb but I’ve managed to kill off everything she left me, I am so hopeless.
Hi Mary! Oh I hear ya about the “black thumb syndrome” so far the fact that my Grandma’s peonies are doing well is some kind of miracle. Plants inside our house never fair well…
Oh Amy thank you so much for the memory! That was a little like me moving in here, we kinda just inherited most of my grandparents’ old furniture and all the good and the bad along with it 🙂 Her peonies are my favorites though and I am just SO relieved I haven’t killed them lol once my mom gets to her forever house (soon here I hope) I hope to be able to split a bunch of these and give her a row of her own – they really are just as much her’s as mine.
I got so wrapped up in the peony comment that I forgot that I actually came here to thank you for hosting Grandma’s House link party, so thanks for the memories and thanks for hosting!
lol Thanks for coming by Amy, hope you have a great week!
How lucky you are to have inherited these from your grandmother! Thanks for sharing at The Bloggers Pit Stop! Roseann from http://www.thisautoimmunelife.com
Thank you Roseann!
Your peonies are beautiful – they’re something we don’t seem to have in Australia and I am always envious of photos of people growing them in their gardens. I pinned a couple of your pics because they were so gorgeous.
Thank you so much Leanne!