FULL TOUR: 2026 PEONY TOUR // PEONIES AS CUT FLOWERS // Backyard Flower Farm

Well, hello everyone, welcome back to the channel, this is an exciting one. It is the peony tour. Now, if you think I'm saying that incorrectly, don't panic, okay? It's all right, it's a Dalek thing. I say peony, it's a little bit different, but it doesn't interfere with intelligibility or anything, so it's gonna be fun. Just don't have a cow. There are a lot of really pretty ones in this video and I admit, this is the first time I've kind of compiled them all together. This actual little peony field of mine has been growing about two and a half years now. I'm getting into it. The first one I did want to show you is something a little bit different. This is Treasure Mountain. It is actually a tree peony, which is crazy because it's something I've always wanted. They're very much an investment. I only have two or three total. This is the only one that bloomed this year. It is just so pretty. It has those beautiful pink tones and as it got older and older, the petals kind of started to fade and there was a little bit of that white that was so beautiful. And of course, the bees absolutely loved this. I'm not quite sure whether or not this is going to be, you know, fertile or produce seeds, but very interested to see it. Next, I wanted to show you the Coral Charm peonies. These are obviously one of the very first bloomers here in the garden and rightfully so. They're so gorgeous. They're so different from any of the other kind of peonies that I have here. They're always just readily identifiable by those kind of cupped blooms. And of course, the color. Lots of ants on these. I only have a few plants, so I don't have tons and tons of footage of these. Another new one to me this year was Faithful Dream. This was an early one. I should mention these are all in order of how they open. This turned out to be one of my absolute favorites. This is a first year one, so I don't have too much in terms of blooms or stem length or things like that. Some of them were double, very, very double fluffy and beautiful. And some of them were kind of semi-double bordering almost a single. Either way, this color is such a lovely bubblegum pink. I definitely want to purchase more of these in the future. It's a variety that I haven't seen. And both of those flower forms are just so lovely. Blushing Princess is another one I bought a few years back. But I think this is the first time it's really bloomed well. I know you guys like to see the plants, but admittedly, my weeds are a little bit bad. So don't tell anybody about it. This has a really lovely pastel kind of inner look. Fades with time. Mine are very much full sun, so mine do seem to fade a little bit quicker than some of the other ones. This was another one that had some doubles and it had kind of like a semi-double open center. I don't mind open centers. I think they're very delicate and feminine looking and just flouncy. Is flouncy a word? Lots of pollinators getting attracted to those as well, which is, of course, always a huge bonus. Next up, we have another really, really popular one. This is Etched Salmon. As I've mentioned, I'm very much just, you know, starting this little peony farm. So I don't have many blooms. And these are, for a lot of these plants, are their first year. This was the first year for Etched Salmon as well. With Etched Salmon, you get that vibrant color and you get that awesome bowl shape. That like cupped shape. I am so in love with the way those look. Again, so first year plant. I probably shouldn't have let them bloom, but I couldn't resist. So I did. Sorry. I know it's not good for the plants, but it'll be okay. Also have one polyphe bloom. Not much there. Very hard to get this color to show true on film. Very much an electric, almost magenta pink, which is gorgeous. Next, this day when I was picking flowers this day, there was a thunderstorm coming in quick. So I had to pick the flowers as quickly as possible. This one is Dutelle. They are kind of closed up because the sun wasn't shining. And you know, you just got to do what you got to do. This is a lovely kind of soft pink with those fancy innards. I don't know what these are specifically called. I really need to learn my peony parts so that I can do a better job of explaining the different types. Also pick Miss America. What's crazy about this Miss America, as you can see, there are 12 honeybees nestled in those petals. If you look in there, all those dark spots you see are honeybees that were bedding down before it started to rain. And I was, you know, flinging these flowers all over the place and they didn't seem to care at all. I always love a good variety that's attractive to honeybees and pollinators and things like that. Can't go wrong with too many beneficial insects. Princess Bride was another one that was the first time bloomer in the garden. Only had a couple of flowers. It's really beautiful. I love those big, full, bouncy, vibrant, curly Q centers. This one was labeled Red Charm. I'm not quite sure if it is Red Charm. It seems darker to me. For some reason, I was remembering Red Charm as something a little bit more pink, but a true red. Don't quote me on this being Red Charm, though. Let me know in the comments if you think that label was correct because I'm honestly not certain. I do my best to keep my labels right. But even imports, sometimes imports are incorrect as well. So you do your best. Next variety here is a gorgeous one. It's Cora Stubs. Again, I love just those big, fluffy centers. I can't get enough of those. I would say what kind of they are, but I'm not quite sure if I'm allowed to say that word here on YouTube or if I'll get demonetized. So I'm not going to roll the dice on that one. Just a very, very beautiful color combination. And this is my first ever Bowl of Beauty. This little first year plant was doing so well, I didn't even want to pick his flowers. Just so stinking cute. Again, you can see a real pattern of things that I'm drawn to. That's one of the funny things in making this video. It's just like finding the gaps in my plant stock of things I haven't ordered and things I have ordered. It's really obvious, especially towards the end. You'll see what I'm talking about. But Bowl of Beauty, another one. I'm definitely going to order some more of these. I think this is the only Bowl of Beauty I have in the entire yard, which is crazy because it's gorgeous. Look at this thing. Moving right along. This is Colonel Owen Cousins. This one was a showstopper. Now this one, there's a little bit of confusion here between this one and I think it's Madame de Vernville. One was mislabeled, but I'm pretty sure one is the Madame one and one is the Colonel. The Colonel is the one with the light centers here without that pink eye. You see the dark pink eye. The dark pink eye is the Madame de Vernville and the one with the kind of really light pink beautiful center is the Colonel Owen Cousins. Either way, these are absolutely gorgeous and you're going to have to forgive my gratuitous amounts of footage for these specific varieties, but they just bloomed so well. I couldn't help but pick them all and enjoy them for myself. Also got a lot of donations this peony season, which is really exciting because it's been a while since I was able to do donations and I was able to send out a lot of buckets, mainly in part to Moonlit Snow. Now, Moonlit Snow is one of the larger plantings of peonies that I have here in the yard. I have 35 of these Moonlit Snow plants. I got these as a part of a bargain trade deal on the Facebook group, the wholesale for small growers, and these are so gorgeous. If you want a big, fluffy, roughly dependable white, you know, fading to pink or pink fading to white, I'm not sure which order it goes. These are gorgeous. The blush tones are so subtle. I think you can see it here in the video, but they are just so subtle. The stems are long. The plants are robust. They do have a lot of secondary bloom, secondary buds, so that can be a good thing if you're looking for a landscape show, or you can kind of play, you know, picking it with the secondary buds. Sometimes they open, sometimes they don't. Just really depends on what you want, but this variety is so dependable and reliable. I just, I can't say enough good things about it. I'm singing its praises. I know with videos like this, I have the tendency to get a little bit redundant sometimes, but it's worth it with that one. Scrumdiddlyumptious. That's the next one. It's different. I think this is an Ato. Don't quote me on that, of course, because I usually just record these without any kind of notes or anything, but absolutely stunning. This one really, this one bloomed really well for the first time since I planted it. I want to say I planted it two seasons ago. Just a really lovely combination of corals and things like that. Green Halo is another interesting one. Not typical of things, you know, things that I would be naturally drawn to. Kansas, another really, really dependable one. About this time, I'm really starting to get into a lot of the deep red, deep pink type flowers. Kansas is a double. I have several of these plants and they have always been very dependable in terms of stem length and flower production. And of course, the ability to outcompete the weeds, because let's face it, as much as I don't want to admit it, that is very much a thing in my garden. The same can be said by Louis Van Hout. I don't know how to pronounce most of these, so sorry in advance. Color and color very similar to Kansas, but in form we have these kind of open centers. I guess this would be a semi-double. I'm not really quite sure. I've never been really good at classifying these things. But these are so prolific. If you're somebody who doesn't mind that open center, which I think it gives it a little extra flair and elegance sometimes. I mean, full doubles are great too. Don't get me wrong, but sometimes you want to see the center of a flower and those are among the top performers, at least in terms of these deep pink kind of red peony varieties here in the garden. We also had some really nice Carl Rosenfields. I only had a couple of these and I think I planted them last year, so they weren't really producing that many flowers, but I did want to show you. They seem very similar to some of the other ones. Next is White Cap. This is one of the more interesting varieties and you'll see a little bit later. Really nice sprays with this one. Again, it was going to rain this day, so these are a little bit more closed up than normal. So you have that kind of nice cup shape. You know, I can't pronounce anything. A classic, a true classic. You get a little bit of the cup shape. I like the combination personally of the little bits of yellow and green in the center of these that give them just a little bit of extra interest. And in terms of dependable, I mean, this one's a classic for a reason. It's so dependable, even though I just have a couple of these plants. It's really nice. I'm not quite sure of the name of this one. You might remember back, I did a video where I asked some people who were tearing down a farmhouse if I could dig up the peony in the front yard. Well, this is it. This is the peony, that huge peony that I transplanted into my yard from a stranger's yard. It's gorgeous. I'm so excited. I knew it was pink, but I wasn't sure of the form because I'd only seen it from a distance driving by in my car, but very pretty. The same can also be said of these pink lemonade peonies, which are very new to me. I just planted these last year, first year, very tiny. But look at those blooms. I love these fluffy centers. Can you tell? Like, you know, I have, there's a pattern. I need to break the pattern. I need to get more diversity in my plantings as I continue to kind of grow these peony beds. But just look at that center. It's such a beautiful mixture of just a pale yellow and white. Very, very pretty. I'm talking about blush colored peonies again. Shirley Temple is a classic. Mine are boarding a little bit on the white side, just because they do get so much sun when they first open. They're more of a blushed color. I do try to get these as soon as they open so that I can show you. Obviously, if I'm, you know, picking for cut flowers, I want to catch those in the marshmallow stage, but that's not what this video is about. So we're just going to keep on going. I just love the ruffles on these full varieties. I just want to climb in there and take a nap in them because they are just so, so pretty and delicate looking. Even though they're so delicate looking, I'm always surprised by the vase life. It seems like, um, you know, these things can have a vase life easily over a week. If you're picking them in marshmallow stage, these things just sit in a vase forever. And I just absolutely love it. I was really so glad to be able to make some vases, um, for a local nursing home. I really need to get the donation thing going again since I've moved. I've really had trouble finding people to be able to help me with that because admittedly it's a lot and it's pretty hard when you're the only person doing it, you know, from start to finish, picking or growing, picking, arranging, dropping off, picking back up. It's, it can get really, um, I don't know. I don't want to say frustrating, but it's really, uh, it's hard. That's basically it. Anyway, it was about this point in the video where I was just like, okay, you have lots of this really, really pretty footage of all these white blush varieties. You need to put it in here and maybe at this point you can just ramble on. Um, I did want to mention membership to the channel. If you are interested in that, be sure to check that out. There's extra content, uh, there. And if you're enjoying this video and you're not a subscriber, please do hit subscribe. It would mean the world to me. It really does help the channel when you hit subscribe, lets the algorithm know that you care and plus it, uh, will notify you whenever I post these new videos. So that's a really big deal to me if you haven't done that already and the like button and the hype button, all those different buttons. But, um, okay, let's get back to the peonies. I know I got a little bit sidetracked. Um, but as you can see, as the season went on, more of the darker color peonies started to come into bloom. And one thing I noticed I was missing were pinks, just regular pinks. Who knew? This variety is Paul M Wild. It is very similar to Kansas and a lot of them that I've already shown you. Um, you'll realize when you get into peonies that a set of varieties are already very, very similar. I think there's like 3000 or 8000 different varieties or something. And a lot of them are very similar. So, um, if you do want to keep logs of them, you do have to make sure that you are labeling them very well. That's, that's something that I have done intentionally and really worked towards. This is Moonstone. Very nice. This is yet another kind of whitish blush variety. It's got those beautiful double petals. So we're really just looking at those full flowers that are excellent for like, you know, bridal bouquets and things like that, or just stick in a mason jar and just enjoy on your own. Nevertheless, these did have some kind of secondary blooms for me. I'm not quite sure how common that is, but look at those big, fluffy, ruffly petals. Absolutely. I miss loving it. Moving right along, I'm sure there are many, many more varieties here. I do have more in the garden. I should mention that I don't have listed in this. Bridal Icing. That is another kind of cupped one that is very, very lovely. Bits of that yellow in there. They remind me a little bit of Honey Gold, but without a prominent center. And they remind me a little bit of the Duchess ones as well. I'm not quite sure if you would need both if you were growing either one of those already, but I do really, really like this. As I said, some of them didn't, a lot of them didn't bloom this year. You know, it's first time, first year, and they just didn't bloom and that's fun. This is Solang, I guess is how I'm going to say that. This is another white with a blush, you know, blush pink petals. And really the main identifier for this one that sets it apart from some of the other ones is you can see the form like that one on the far left. It's got a kind of rosetted center. I'm not quite sure if I'm explaining that well. I'm probably not. But these blooms are massive, really, really impressive stuff. With a variety like Solang, I can see why they, you know, might cost a little bit more in terms of ordering the roots and things because they got some big flowers. Let's just say that. By the end of my kind of picking season, I do have some kind of lighter pinks left in the garden, but it was very few and far between. So I thought I would go ahead and just work on this video and publish this video because I know so many people are interested, or at least I hope you're interested. If you are here and you've made it this far, I really do know that I really appreciate you. I mean, I'm honestly, I'm just trying to keep the channel alive. Here's those white cap ones again. Those ended up being one of my absolute favorites this year. It's crazy because they're so just small and they don't really open up that well. But it's cool how the sprays are so large, like one spray had five open flowers on it. And it's like, that's just like a really neat, unique characteristic that I haven't seen in some of the other varieties. So even though they were a little bit smaller, that was something I was really interested in. I got sidetracked. But yeah, if you've made it this far, obviously, you know, thank you so much. It really means a lot to me. This whole thing is a lot of work. I think keeping a closer track of all these different varieties turned out to be like a really fun kind of way to document the progress of the peony patch. I know there aren't any like big views of the peony beds in this video. And that's a lot of times what people want to see. If you're a member, you have seen the peony beds in the other videos. Maybe that's something I can work towards eventually. But for now, I'll admit the grass is a little bit out of control. And I think more than anything, I just wanted to take the time to document all of the different stuff. That's really about it for this one. As always, all the links and everything. I think there's a lot of different products tagged in this one. So you can, you know, take a closer look at some of the nicer varieties if you're interested to grow them yourself. I did want to mention Eden's Perfume. I almost completely forgot. This is like one of the few pink varieties I have. It is just so full and fluffy. It's kind of got that ball form. It's a little bit fuller than, you know, something like, I don't know. I don't, I can't really think of an example off the top of my head. Anyway, links are all down below. Thank you so much for watching. I'm going to leave you guys with some video clips of the older Peony Tour video I did several years ago. I'll put a link to that as well in the cards so you can check that out if you're interested. There are some more unique varieties in that if you want to see even more. And don't forget to subscribe. All that good stuff. Leave a comment down below. I'd be more than happy to try to answer any questions that I can. Fingers crossed, you know, but I admittedly, I don't know everything. Try my best to answer questions. I hope you're having a really great day. You deserve it. I'll talk to you all later. Bye.