Dear John and all; You could try any of these in the LA area, but, more important, make sure they are not in full sun and given a cool site. Probably the suffruticosa cvs will perform better. 'Fen Dan Fen' (a big single pink) and 'Fen Dan Bai' a single white, AKA 'Phoenix White' and 'P. ostii'* are abundant and easy. They both do fine here, but can get late frost damages. The rockii selections such as Zi He (rose pink single) and Xue Lian (white single) may require more cold. I think you can pix of all these on the Carsten Burkhardt site mentioned earlier (http://www.paeon.de/name/). These are all decent cvs, but you will have to try a variety to see what actually does best. None of these 'flop' like herbaceous plants and I don't think any of the Chinese cvs are coral in color. Look to Saunders.lutea hybrids for that. 'Blue' peonies are in the mind of the Chinese beholder. Jim W. * RE: P. ostii. This is a species and widely grown and selected for herbal medical properties of its roots. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of plants are harvested each year for roots. Most plants in cultivation are seed grown. Plants are hybrids or species- at least somewhere down the line. Some look very much like the wild species (including morphology of leaves, flowers, follicles etc) and other are much less-so. I have grown about a 15-18 plants and only 3 (maybe) are close enough to look like the species. Because it is so widely grown, it is relatively inexpensive. Also easy from seed, but don't expect exactly true species. >Jim et al., >Woudl anyone care to take a stab at which TP hybrids >they would suggest for So CA? I'd love to get species >seeds if anyone has some spare available. I am not a >member of any of the societies that offer them. >So, I must resort to cultivars that are readily >available. >I know that I can get rockii and ostii cvs but I >really want to get a few more. I am looking at the >following: >Ru Hua Si Yu >Feng Dan Fen >Feng Dan Bai >Xiangyang Hong >Lan Hudie >Zi He >Xue Lian -- Dr. James W. Waddick 8871 NW Brostrom Rd. Kansas City Missouri 64152-2711 USA Ph. 816-746-1949 E-fax 419-781-8594 Zone 5 Record low -23F Summer 100F +