A couple of points: 1. Paeonia cambessedessi (and I may have miissssspellllllled that) No one has mentioned Paeonia cambessedessii from the Balearic Islands. Those of you in warmer climates might give it a whirl. Dark beet-red foliage overlain with a metallic cast; flowers of horrible magenta, but scented of cloves. A small plant, admittedly, but worth treasuring. Here in Victoria, it's too tender to overwinter without protection of a greenhouse. 2. Peonies in Los Angeles I once read of an LA gardener whose success with an ordinary peony made her the envy of her gardening friends. The secret? Every night she and her husband would have a cocktail before dinner, and afterwards she'd dump the ice cubes around the base of her peony. Quite possibly an urban legend. 3. Plants and Pests from China After reading about the removal of feeder roots from tree peonies to hide nematode infestations, I suggest that gardeners boybott plants imported from China. Socially, China continues to have a serious problem with corruption, so Chinese phytosanitary certificates are not worth the paper they're written on. With active measures being taken to disguise the presence of pathogens, there's simply too much risk of getting a serious pest into your garden from Chinese plants. Some years ago, the Canadian authorities put an absolute ban on plant imports from China because of the prevalence of pests & disease, esp. nematodes, notwithstanding phytosanitary certification. (I do not know how long this ban was kept in force.) It is surprising that the US, which has cracked down on seed imports, allows anything in the way of plants to be imported from China. The latter, or so it seems to me, presents much greater risks. Those of you who have already planted out Chinese material might do well not to distribute plants from your gardens among your friends. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate on beautiful Vancouver Island