When the tree peony season began this year, I decided to save flowers in the refrigerator in order to get a good group picture of the early suffruticosa sorts with the later yellow-flowered hybrids. In our climate, there can be a two week gap between the first of the suffruticosa types and the first of the yellow-flowered hybrids. The idea was to store the suffruticosa sorts in the refrigerator until the yellow-flowered hybrids began to bloom. Because Mother's Day came within this period, I also hit on the idea of setting up a grand table display for the Mother's Day brunch. Although most family members had seen one or two tree peony flowers now and then over the years, no one had any sense of the variety and numbers. So each morning I would go out into the garden and pick whichever ones were in bloom. Soon I had about sixty flowers in the refrigerator. On Mother's Day the first of the yellow-flowered sorts had only just begun to open. And I was very busy that morning in preparing the brunch. I decided to use only about half of the refrigerated blossoms for table decoration - as it turned out, that was plenty. This made a big impact on family members. The flowers were set out at about 9 A.M.; the day was warm, and by noon the flowers were showing signs of duress - a few fell apart. And on top of that, I discovered that the battery in my camera was dead: how did that happen? So I had to charge the battery, and by the time the battery was charged up, more of the flowers had run down. I did not get any good images of this group. Yesterday, several of the flowers of grand old 'Souvenir de Maxime Cornu' were fully developed, and I cut those. Today I removed the remaining two dozen or so flowers from the refrigerator and grouped them outside with the more recently cut blooms of Souvenir for another group photograph. This time the blooms were overall in much better condition, although again a few fell apart as soon as I removed their stays (I had wrapped each refrigerated blossom in a wide band of paper to keep the flower tightly closed in the refrigerator. Some of the blossoms expanded greatly in the refrigerator). Here's a link where you can view for yourself: http://www.jimmckenney.com/tree_peonies_2007.htm Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where Dichelostemma multiflorum is putting on a good display. My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/ Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org/ Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/