The Evolution of a Peony

I love peonies.  I love flowers, actually.  I come from a gardeny-flowery family.  My childhood summers were spent in my Grandparent's garden either planting seeds, digging up potatoes, or dying Queen Anne's Lace by adding food coloring to their water.  When you're a kid, these things are magical.  I would follow my Grandmother around to each flower bed and listen with great intensity to her rattle off the names of countless bulbs and flowers that she planted, trying desperately to retain some of her knowledge.   To this day, one of my favorite thrills is listening to the joy in her voice when her plants start to bloom.  


When the chill started to subside here in Colorado and the sun started to shine, our yard started to turn green.  Plants started to pop up in old flower beds, and I started to get excited.  The first thing to bloom was a Bleeding Heart.  It was such a surprise!  Bleeding Hearts don't just come from nowhere, so I knew someone must have planted it before we got here.  So, I started looking for other plants that someone must have left behind and right next to the Bleeding Heart were Peony bushes!  (I went on to find Irises, Tulips, Roses, and Grape Hyacinths!)


The Peonies to forever to bloom - FOR-EV-ER!  Talk about delayed gratification! I watched those little buggers day after day and I thought for sure they were going to wind up being duds.  (Just because I come from a flowery family, doesn't mean the green-thumb gene was passed on to me.)  For some reason, I decided to start taking pictures of the buds.  I thought I might take a picture a day, every day until they bloomed...just knowing that it would be at least another week until they made their debut.  Well!  I was wrong!  This set of pictures was taken of the same bud within 24 hours...

Of course, all of the other buds started to go crazy around the same time.  I was SO excited!  And then the hail came.  The poor peonies took a beating, so while Nathan raked the hail debris in the backyard, I cut them off of the bush and stuck 'em in a vase.  Man, they're pretty.  

Can't wait for the roses...