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The First Peony - 'Shima-Nishiki'

The Tree Peony 'Shima-Nishiki' is the first to bloom. The name means "fire flame" in Japanese, an apt title to describe the red blooms striped with white. Occasionally, there are solid red blooms. Every year this peony gets better and seemingly overnight, the puny-looking bare branches are suddenly fleshed out with a tremendous profusion of leaves. The bush is dense, forming a 4 ft. mound. Our plant resides at the top of one of the terrace beds in back where it gets some morning sun and dappled sun (mostly shade) for the remainder of the day.  We have many peonies in the garden and they all came from Adelman Peony Gardens in Salem, Oregon. It is worth a drive just to see their beautiful display garden in May. Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy
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The perfect spot

This is a neighbor's cat but he may as well be ours since he spends 90% of his time in our garden. We call him Chester. He has the sweetest personality and has the oddest choice for sleeping areas. When he was smaller, he would curl up in a pot of portulaca on top of the garden wall but I guess he outgrew that. Now he prefers the birdbath.



Ah, the life!



Uh, would you get out of here with that camera so I can get my beauty sleep?

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Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 23, 2008 at 10:21 PM

    Ah, he's well positioned in the bird bath. Do you think he knows?

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  2. JessJune 24, 2008 at 6:04 AM

    I love these photos!! What a life!

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  3. GailJune 24, 2008 at 11:16 AM

    It's really a good thing we can't read their minds!

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  4. RandyJune 24, 2008 at 3:22 PM

    He's doesn't have a care in the world. Animals are so entertaining. :-)

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  5. CiNdEe's GaRdEnJune 24, 2008 at 10:21 PM

    He has the perfect spot to catch a bird(-: He is just pretending to be sleeping...

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  6. AnonymousJune 25, 2008 at 5:23 AM

    What adorable pictures. I just love having cats in the garden. We have our orange cat and the neighbor's black cat sleeping in our back garden all the time. Their calm, peaceful nature lends a zen-like atmosphere to that area.

    Jan
    Always Growing

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  7. KC MO Garden GuyJune 29, 2008 at 6:16 PM

    Animals make our lives so much richer!! Even if they aren't ours!!

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  8. Philip BewleyJune 30, 2008 at 8:48 AM

    That is just the cutest thing!

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  9. RhondaJuly 1, 2008 at 1:16 PM

    LOL...now that's a pick me up for sure. I love to visit a blog that makes me smile. Thanks for sharing that.

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  10. EveJuly 2, 2008 at 12:13 PM

    He sure does dress up an empty birdbath quite nicely. I love cat pics. I have three of my own.

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