Still itching for winter to end...

Just a couple more weeks...

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.

Wed Pic: My Poor Peony

I planted this peony two years ago and two weeks later, we had the "not a tornado (yeah, right)" storm. My peony was chopped off about an inch from the ground and I was sure it was dead. Last year, much to my surprise, it grew back but it never got around to blooming. I was so excited when it bloomed last weekend, but then yesterday came.

The largest bloom, Sunday...



...and after yesterday's storm:


Oh, well, I guess we'll see what it does next year, and you know the instant it blooms, I'll be out there with my camera. The top picture is the only good one I got with my cell phone. *sigh*

Aftermath

After the Storm 8-20-2007 8-24-00 PM, originally uploaded by mdesive.

After the Storm 8-20-2007 8-25-14 PM, originally uploaded by mdesive.

We had quite the storm last night. The tornado sirens went off during dinner, so we headed to the basement, but pretty soon hunger won out so I ran back up for our plates and we finished down there on the couch, fighting off the dogs who kept "innocently" sniffing at our food. ("What? I just want to see what you're having...in case I want to take it!")

After the storm was over, light started filtering through the thick clouds so I went out for some pictures. Most of them didn't come out well in the low light, but I got a few good ones.

After watching the news, I'm really glad we live in a new development where the trees are still little. No car- or house-crushing branches to fall on us. Other parts of town weren't so lucky in that respect.