Jim asked, "You mentioned that your plant of Shimanishiki has the herbaceous roots six inches down. The typical, newly purchased grafted Japanese tree peony rarely has six inches of tree peony scion. So your plant must be several years old, and must have grown well, too. Did you start it with the herbaceous stock six inches down? Or have you shifted it deeper gradually? " My plant was purchased at a local nursery in OH. It was a decent size. I planted it about 4" down with only a few buds about the soil line. Then, I slowly moved it down since I had to dig it up anyway. As far as the flowers on it (Shimanishiki), they are somewhat unstable. I have three of them planted around/under/near an old crabapple. They really just started flowering last year. This year there was a bloom or two on each plant. Each plant had several colors on the flowers. By this I mean, some were pure white, some pure red/plum, some a splotching of both colors. I was hoping for a white with red splotchs on all of them but, oh well. Variety is the spice of life, right? ===== 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)