Well, since the issue of pruning them has been brought up, I will add a depressing footnote. At my uncle's house (OH), where the majority of my peony experience and joy comes from, we have a small animal that is going to be made into a stew if they are not removed soon. I'm speaking of the #&$&&#^$# rabbits. They striped every bud from the TP this year. Thank heavens that I planted them deep enough to still have buds below the ground. A full, 3' tall 'Rimpoh' was reduced to the 3 or 4 underground buds. And it wasn't like they ate one or two of them in one bed. They ate almost all of them. They spared maybe 3 or 4 plants out of 20+. They even ate the bark from the dogwood, crabapple saplings, the barberries (thorns and all), the azaleas, and there was something else major that I can't think of right now. So, as a point, TP can take heavy pruning and still come back. This would also translate to hard winters in areas of z4 or maybe lower. Mulch and they should be fine. So, I now see that all the TP will need to be screened in each fall to keep the little ------- out of there. It would have been the first year for many of these to bloom but, that didn't happen. Now I have to wait another year for some results. ===== John Ingram in L.A., CA. http://www.floralarchitecture.com/ check it out Floralartistry2000@yahoo.com 310.709.1613 (cell, west coast time, please call accordingly. Thank you)