Peonies going dormant for the winter 2012

By late summer or fall, most of the peonies have already stored as much energy as they can for the year and go dormant. This means that their leaves will change colors, fall off, and the tuberous roots will likely shed their feeder roots as they go to sleep. Another way to tell is when the buds for next year really start swelling up in preparation to sprout by next spring. Tree and itoh peonies should have completely woody stems by this point.

Here are some of the seedlings

Most of them will produce more than 1 bud as a 1st year seedling, even if they are weaker ones which only have 1 leaf.

Moso Bicolor growth diary starting from 18 March 2011

This is one of my favorite bamboos, not because of its rarity in the US, but it produces the most beautiful looking culms which are usually yellow with alternating green stripes, as well as some random green striping. It is still very expensive as nurseries are generally very stingy about making it available, but that should change over the next few years as I prefer to share.

18 March 2011; Here's how it looked with 2 tiny, but bushy culms when I got it, and planted it into a 15 gallon container.