You say Penny, I say…

You say “penny”, I say “pee-o-nee” and some people say “piney.”

But everyone says pretty!

Everyone!

There is no way any sane person could look at my new ‘Bartzella’ ITOH peony and not be blown over by its beauty.

And the good news is, I’ve planted it in the ground where it belongs.

In fact, until another shipment of trial plants arrived today, I had all the “plant in the ground” plants planted in the ground with the exception of one hosta.

I will not pat myself on the back though because… container plants. They are everywhere but in the containers where they will live out the summer. If I pat myself on the back, I’m likely to pull a muscle I didn’t know I had and then…

Oh goodness, yes, I still need to plant tomatoes and peppers. But there’s still time.

Look, the first of my old-fashioned passalong, got-em-from-my-dad’s-garden peonies are starting to open up.

They are pretty too. I think I’ll use these peonies opening up as my sign that it is okay now to plant tomatoes and peppers. My own little phenology event. Yes, I wrote phenology, not phrenology. Phrenology with an “r” is what we call studying bumps on someone’s head to figure out their personality traits.

No need to study bumps on my head. I have the personality of an eccentric gardener!

Whew, no more speaking events for a while! I spoke to a lovely group of Master Gardener’s this morning to conclude my spring round of talks. My next event to speak at is in September. But, I’ll still be publishing new episodes of The Gardenangelists podcast with Dee Nash every week with occasional bonus episodes thrown in for good measure.

Have you listened to our bonus episode about how to grow a basic summer vegetable garden? If you haven’t, you should!

And don’t call yourself a gardener unless you’ve listened to our bonus podcast episode on weeding at least twice. We wrote and recorded it to be a source of inspiration to every gardener who weeds, which really is every gardener. We wrote and recorded it to be listened to over and over again! We wrote and recorded it because want to do for weeding what Jane Fonda did for workouts when she recorded her workout video back in 1982.