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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

Lily 'Caravan" and "Silk Road"


The lilies are beginning to bloom. I think they are spectacular plants. They struggle to reach for the sun in our garden and the stalks aways flop over and have to be staked, otherwise the beautiful flowers end up nodding towards the ground. This is one of my favorites - "Caravan" - which I purchased many years ago from The Lily Garden in Vancouver, Washington.

Another good one is "Silk Road" (pictured below).



Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy

Comments

  1. Phillip, I love lilies as well and appreciate them more every year. They fill a void in my garden between rose flushes and before the Rose of Sharon and fall perennials kick in.

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  2. These are beauties. How can anyone not like these gorgeous plants? I would love to have many more than I have now. They are such an easy plant to grow. I too have to stake them. I don't know many who don't have to stake their lilies.

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  3. I haven't had much luck with lilies here, but I'm not sure why. I do have a few plants looking good about now, so maybe I'll have more blooms this year. It's been very rainy this year, so perhaps they like more rain? Yours are gorgeous!

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