BIG Flaah!

A beautiful peony they are best left on their own don't like being disturbed. should go on for many many years as long as you don't try and move it.

Thats a cracker Tosh, was this taken last year?

Yes, Milky - Like I say, I don't do anything to it, it just keeps coming back year after year. It doesn't like the rain though and this bloom was taken early in the season as the wet summer managed to rot all subsequent buds. It grows next to a rather sad standard Iceberg rose, and many years ago, the pair were a rare sight together. Nowadays the Iceberg has seen better days and may have to come out. I'll give it one more year before I put the black cap on and condemn it to death. All this stuff is in my mothers garden (she's now rather too elderly to do anything herself) I don't have anything so hi-falutin' as a peony! Or a rose (yet).

When a neighbour was about to concrete over her front garden, I rescued two of her paeonies. I planted one in my front garden and the second in another neighbour's garden, in the height of the summer. Amazingly, both flourished. I've heard that paeonies like to be planted not too deep, and I probably did that correctly, accidentally, as the task was done in a hurry !