Pretty Peonies

Sue and I got lucky with a dry day for our visit to Adelman Peony Gardens. It was my first visit to this particular grower, and what a treat! I took pictures of virtually everything I laid eyes on, and then this morning ordered five peonies for our garden...to be planted after they arrive this fall. In the meantime, Mike and I will have to get busy preparing a new home for them.

So...wanna see? I won't show you all the pictures, but I'll show you some of our favorites, and I'll show you which ones we ordered. First...the rules. Always rules.

But we didn't see any signs posted about the many ways you could die out here. Just be careful driving, okay?

The gardens themselves were stunning and immaculate. What I wouldn't give for a garden like this...and someone to do the weeding.

There was so much more than peonies here too. Beautiful iris...

These clematis were the size of dinner plates.

They had lupine in many different colors.

There was so much more to see. It was rather windy and so some of my pictures didn't turn out because of the blur. If you live in the local area, it's really worth a drive to Salem to see for yourself. I'm hoping Mike and I can get down there before the open house ends on June 16th.

As for the peonies, here are some of our favorites, and I'll show you the ones we ended up ordering. This first one caught my eye right away. We saw it several times, and it was a shoo-in for ordering. It's called "Fairy Princess."

I loved this next one too. There were several pretty yellow ones. I thought we'd order this one called "Sonoma Sun,"

but then I chose this next one instead. It's called "Garden Treasure," and it's more fragrant than Sonoma Sun.

Here's another one that we ordered, called "Joker."

This one was very pretty. It's called "Chiffon Clouds." I was really on the hunt for the most brightly colored and the most fragrant, and this one didn't make the cut, pretty though it is.

This was Sue's favorite, called "Coral Sunset." Sue was drawn to the coral colored ones. I ordered this one for our garden too.

This next one would have made the cut, but it's not available any longer. It's called "Color Magnet."

There was one called Candy Stripe listed in their catalog, but no longer available. Instead, I chose this one called "Rosy Prospects." It has the same colors, Candy Stripe was more variegated in color.

We left the garden and headed over to their barn where there were many cut flowers to be seen. Here were a few that caught my eye:

This next one was very unusual.

And I loved this next one, but as the sign says, it's not currently available.

From there, I headed for home. When I got home, I noticed this wild tree growing along our fence line. I don't think I've ever noticed it in bloom before.

It was covered with clusters of these tiny white flowers.

When I turned around, I could see our Golden Chain tree across the way and in full bloom now. It's so pretty.

I love these flowers. We've killed two of these trees in the past. This one has been in the ground about two years, and we planted it in a different place. It looks like it's going to go this time around.

And here's our newest tree, the Dappled Willow. I keep waiting for it to do the thing I bought it for, but it isn't quite there yet.

It should put out sprays from its top of long pink branches. Hard to know if it's foliage or flower, and I'm still waiting to find out.

Of course, I checked on the poppy again. It opens the tiniest bit more each day, but nothing yet.

It has four flower buds on it, but the one above is the closest to opening.

And then there are these two...weeds in the garden.

You look that way, Smitty...I'll look this way.

There was no sewing yesterday, but I'll get back to it today. We're in for a wet weekend, and looking forward to dry weather next week.