Last year was an amazing year for peonies here in Northwest Wisconsin, ample rains the previous year and a gentle, cool spring set the stage for a unparalleled bloom season. The photo above, featuring a grandson among some Paul Wild peony plants, was taken last summer here at Fina Gardens. We shipped tens of thousands of peony cut flowers to wholesale distributors across the nation.

The weather remained favorable with timely rains through the growing season, which meant that by fall we had many exceptional root divisions to send out to our gardeners. We were especially thrilled by the number of repeat customer orders we filled right up until November.

We also took advantage of the good fall weather to expand both our cut flower plantings and the number and varieties for our root division customers.

I’m excited about our plans to use this blog in 2012 take a more in depth at featured varieties each week. It should give gardeners some more complete information to use in selecting just the right peonies for their garden.

The reviews will include information from a variety of research material, as well as my own first-hand observations from growing each variety. We’ll be starting off with a review of one of the best intersectional peonies grown today—Garden Treasure.