There's a yellow rose in...Nebraska...

(if you're old enough to remember that song, you're welcome for the earworm)

It seems my rosebush has decided to put out one last (humongous!) rose for the season, but it's trying to keep it all to itself, letting it bloom way back in the branches.

 

 

This thing is bigger than a softball, and sooo pretty.

Peonies of Doooom!

A week after I planted my peony plant in 2008, we had a horrible storm here in Omaha which tore the plant up so badly I was sure it would die. 

Luckily, it came back nicely the next spring, but about a day after it opened its single bloom, we had a hailstorm which tore it to shreds again. 

The next year it put out two or three blooms and within a day or two, a storm. Flowers, gone.

This year the plant produced four blooms. They've been opening one by one throughout the past week.

The last one bloomed earlier today...

Batten down the hatches.