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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

Wide Shot Wednesday - Looking across the terraces


I have a hard time finding new photo angles but here is one I've not taken before. This is looking across the three terrace beds. You can't see the steps in the center or the far side because of the plants. You can see Crape Myrtle 'Dynamite' blooming just over the fence. You can also see another red splash, the Hibiscus 'Midnight Marvel' that I just wrote about, near the center. The splash of yellow near the center is Cotinus 'Golden Spirit'. The Katsura tree on the left is also providing some yellow color as well. And there is Michael on the far left dutifully watering.

Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy

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