Monday, May 6, 2013

My Trip to Peony Paradise

The day finally arrived!

Sales area

I'd planned this trip for months. I poured over the Adleman's Peony Catalog all winter to study each of their peonies and its particulars.

I prepared extensions to flowerbeds way back in in March to accommodate any new peony plants I would buy!

We wanted to go this past opening weekend to get the 10% off potted plants. I also like getting first pick of the litter, so I wanted to get right into the sales area.

Lovely rows of sale plants, so much to choose from.
Friday before I went, I spent some time creating a cheat sheet with twelve possible plants that I could/would buy.  I included pictures and comments for each plant. I figured I would get perhaps eight new plants, provided I didn't go over budget (My budget was $250). 
We dove into the sales are first, before checking out the display gardens.

Although I had my cheat-sheet with twelve possible plants, a couple I wanted were not available and a couple were available but the plants were not as big and full as I wanted. So a couple laps around the sales area with the catalog, to check out the really robust plants was needed. 
I should have bought eight to fill out the cart, but I got seven for $142!
My partner in crime, Anita, came prepared to buy three plants and ended up with five. Sorry Anita!

There are just too many cool peonies to pass them up and the prices are very reasonable. Some of the Itoh and tree peonies are much more expensive, but still reasonable for such well grown plants.

My CRV stuffed to the gills with 12 peonies!
Our visit was very early in the season, but there was still lots to see in the display gardens. The tree peonies and the intersectionals were doing their thing. Most of the herbaceous peonies still need a few more weeks to really be in full swing.

Lots of buds to open yet!


'Leda' Tree Peony

'Ofuji Nishiki' Tree Peony
 

'Hephestos' Tree Peony


The yellow one is 'Lemon Chiffon'.  


'Sonoma Velvet Ruby' Intersectional Peony
'First Arrival' Intersectional Peony


5 comments:

  1. Some day I'm going to buy a tree peony. I've wanted one for a long time. Looks like a great place!

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  2. My tree peony 'Chinese Dragon' began blooming today...so beautiful, but I think it would like more sun. They hate to be moved, right? I guess we will just continue staking and pruning. I would hate to kill it.
    You really are the peony guy...I thought you had a lot before this trip.

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  3. Wait so you left over $100 under budget? What's wrong with you man? You do have an outing planned soon to help you spend that extra dough, right?

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  4. @Ricki - I think they are okay with being moved, just be sure to do it in the fall. They do enjoy full sun.

    @Danger - We did stop at Al's and Hughes Water Gardens on the way home, so I did buy a few more things, but I was still under budget overall.

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  5. Hi Matthew, We are a mail order nursery in Australia and I would like to use one of your photos from this blog for our catalogue and our webstore. Can you please email me at info@gardenexpress.com.au so we can discuss this. Cheers, Veronica

    ReplyDelete