This is a picture of a newly bloomed peony in my backyard. These are truly the easiest perennials to grow! I purchased the small plants years ago, plopped them in the ground (how’s that for “official” gardening lingo!) and have watched them grow and bloom wildly ever since!

Peonies thrive in full sun and with minimal work. Since it’s a perennial, you need to cut back the dead stems and leaves every fall but then it turns around in the spring with baby sprouts and glorious flowers.

The only drawback is that they are top-heavy, so you need stakes to hold up the plant and the flowers. The flowers open up SO wide that these skinny long stems can’t possibly support them upright. They also have a very short blooming season, maybe one month, before they are dead. The foliage lasts longer so at least my garden doesn’t look dead right away but I would love to enjoy the flowers for a longer period. C’est la vie.

Every year I look forward to my peonies blooming. It’s a shame that we had such a massive rainstorm two days ago because the rain can make them bend over, too, but I look out my window every single day and just marvel at the glorious color.

You can’t be in a bad mood looking at that beauty!

The biggest challenge was not cutting down any new growth. Of course, I KNOW the best time to trim back perennials is in the fall but I got lazy and the weather turned cold quickly, so that chore never got done.

Despite the sore muscles, I’m happy with the outcome. I still have a couple of smaller areas to weed and make pretty so I’m thinking I should do that soon while I’ve got my outdoor motivation working!