Forty or fifty years ago, the owner of our house planted a LOT of peonies, and by the time we got the place they were huge. Also, in many cases, overtaken by shrubbery.

When we dug the shaded ones to move them we found huge giant knotted rootballs the size of refrigerators. So we divided them and had even more peonies. Three kinds of peonies: dark red, pink and white. (Read more about them – and get some growing tips here)

Theoretically you can’t have too many peonies but I’m here to tell you you can have enough – if they are all the same damn 3 colors. And having a few extra early ones that are magenta does not help, on account of their being magenta.

But we also inherited some fern leaf peonies (read about them – and the lowdown on ants - here) and the fern leafs, more properly Paeonia tenuifolia, were so beautiful and so different they opened an irresistible door.

At least that was my excuse 3 years ago, when I bought a nifty woodland peony at Trade Secrets.

Japanese Woodland Peony, P. japonica. At the time it had I think 4 leaves and zero flowers. It would be nice if this one also developed refrigerator sized roots, but it won’t. As soon as they’re bigger than produce drawers I’m going to divide them.

Those shirred silk petals really knock me out, and the foliage is nothing to sneeze at, either.

Lulled into hubris by this success, I thought last year I could get away with buying a moderately expensive seedling of P. mlokosewitschii, instead of a seriously expensive guaranteed division. The guarantee was that the flower would be pale yellow, a rare color in peonies.

And nonexistent in my plant. I was warned the seedling might turn out to be magenta and you can guess the rest. Bill thinks it’s beautiful. I do not. But the leaves are absolutely gorgeous and the flower is fleeting, so it’s not a total catastrophe.

Seedling of P. mlokosewitschii. The cheapskate’s reward. There is a better picture of a magenta flowered seedling - and one of the real deal - over at my almost neighbor Margaret Roach’s blog, A Way To Garden. But as you can see by comparing the pictures there is a lurking mystery; her seedling’s leaves look so different I’m not sure we have the same plant. (She got hers from Seneca Hill. I got mine from Hillside Nursery.

Next time I head for the hills I’ll pay full freight, though I may have to hock my toes to do it. There are around 2 dozen species peonies that could grow here, and more and more of them are making their way ( expensively) into commerce.

Hot then cold, dry then deluginal then dry again; it’s been a difficult spring. But this year the Northeast is having an excellent morel season, so there is definitely something good to be said, namely

Blonde morels, Morchella esculenta, get ‘em while you can.

The place to get them is in open woodlands or hedgerows, where the soil is alkaline. They frequently keep company with dead elms and dying apples (and poison ivy, I’m sorry to say.)

Bill Bakaitis photo
Morels in a typical habitat. Look to the left and back of the one in the middle to see more. They hide.

Field cleaning ( shaking out bugs, trimming dirt from stems) is essential, and it can be enough if the morels are growing through matted leaves or thick new growth. But a lot of them are in sandy spots or open ground where dirt has splashed up. Always carry a separate bag or basket to put the dirty ones in, so they don’t contaminate the rest.

The little heap at left in front are the dirty ones from this expedition. The little heap at the right is trimmings. Morels last a long time in the fridge if you trim off anything nasty before you put them away, loosely wrapped in waxed paper so they can get air without drying up.

When you get this many, they will dry up before you can eat them all. We used to do this on purpose, threading them on string and hanging them in the greenhouse. Morels are thin fleshed and dry quickly, concentrating the flavor. But for the last decade or so we’ve been mostly stewing them in butter and storing them in the freezer. They keep better texture that way and are much more versatile.

The frost I feared last week (see below ) was a doozy all right; 25 degrees at 5AM on April 30th. Theoretically, that’s normal. Frost-free date for this area is supposed to be May 10th. What’s abnormal was the whole rest of April, which had very few frosty nights and many days with temperatures in the high 70’s to low 80’s.

That heat produced a premature explosion of new growth, tender young succulent stems, leaves and flowers defenseless against cell bursting ice.

Result? The magnolia of course got trashed - what was left of it. But the plum and apple blossoms were spared and to my everlasting surprise and delight, the Viburnum carlesii came through unscathed, every perfumed petal intact.

However. Carnage was visited upon: a large clump of trumpet lilies, wisteria almost in bud, the Miscanthus ‘giganteus’, which was already going great guns, and a beautiful Japanese maple, new last year, that has been my pride and joy.

It also made mush of the bleeding hearts,

Before frost, under the viburnum.

and heaven help us a peony. Just one, and not too badly, but still. A PEONY! Is nothing safe?

The answer, unfortunately is no. Most of the worry about global warming is focussed on droughts, floods and overhot summers, but there’s more to it than that. Unwanted warmth followed by VERY unwanted cold is going to be a fact of life from here on out. To deal with it:

* Plant new spring bloomers as though they were fruit trees: on a north slope, so heat comes late and frost drains away.

* When you remove winter mulch to avoid smothering fresh shoots, keep the mulch material nearby, so you can rake it back over them if/when frost threatens.

* Resist the temptation to prune the roses. You don’t want to encourage the new growth, and leaving the dead and weak stems in place helps keep frost-produced dieback above the wood you want to keep.

* be sure you have a supply of floating row cover aka spun-bonded crop-protector. It’s much lighter than bedsheets, far easier to use, and although it’s ungreenly made of plastic, it lasts practically forever if you take good care of it. Sources include Pinetree Garden Seeds and Johnny’s Selected Seeds
This doesn’t mean you can turn those sheets to rags; the row cover is only good down to about 28 degrees; if you fear even greater misery, use sheets. Either way, remember the purpose is mostly to trap ground heat; a hat that simply keeps frost from touching tops won’t help unless the frost is very light.

For more tips, see the advice posted last fall; a lot of it is useful at planting time.