My peonies are budding!

I love this time of year. Gardening is one of my "other" hobbies. My husband seems to think that I really love to get dirty and muddy and wet and have an aching back just for the fun of it all. Little does he know, while playing in mud IS fun, it's not the work that I love (DUH!) but the results of that work. I don't relish sifting enough dirt through a screen until my fingertips hurt (even with gloves!) to fill out my front flower beds - who really would? But I DO love the flower beds and the fact that almost anything will grow there very quickly because of the attention it was given pre-planting.



The peony plants shown here are another "heirloom" plant from my great-grandmother's garden.



They were carelessly dug up when workers installed a new water well for the house and tossed to one side. Since they had been exposed to the November weather for a couple of weeks before I got to them, I didn't think they were going to grow - but I just couldn't bring myself to throw them away. So I brought them from Maine to New Hampshire, dug a hole in my back flower bed (gets the most sun), put in some of the glorious Miracle-Gro potting soil, and planted my "doomed" bulbs. This is the third year they have bloomed for me and some of the buds on them have grown to the size of golf balls. The flowers, once open, are a beautiful magenta pink color with yellow centers. Stay tuned if you're interested - once they actually bloom I'll post some pictures!