Summer Stock Sunday - 4

For Summer Stock Sunday, I've got my lovely peonies which I transported from their original home in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia when we moved to Cole Harbour eight years ago.














This is the greatest amount of blooms we've had so far. There are five in total. The parent plant, which had been planted by my grandfather at my grandparents' home in Yarmouth over 40 years ago, had quite a few blooms when my husband and I lived there from 1999 to 2001.














This is their house on Nova Scotia's southwest tip. My husband and I moved in with my grandmother to help look after her. My grandfather had passed away eight years before we arrived. He was a lifelong gardener, and when I moved in I felt the lure of his garden beckoning to me. I'd never gardened before arriving in Yarmouth, and a grand love affair started that summer of 1999 that continues today.













As you walked around the side of the house, there was a sheltered side garden away from the constant wind from the ocean, which you can see in the distance.














My grandpa installed the weather-beaten white fence above the stone wall in order to give that wind protection. Tucked behind the orange lilies were the peonies.

As we packed up the house to move to Cole Harbour, I dug up the new forsythia bush, the American pillar rose bush I'd started from cuttings, and made sure to take cuttings from Gram's heritage quince bush on the opposite side of the house.

As we made one final walk-around to make sure we had everything, I looked at the garden to make my goodbye - and realized I hadn't dug up the peony plant.

I grabbed a broken, jagged broom handle from the trash and started digging madly for the peony bulbs. I plunged my hands into the earth and felt around until I could grasp the tubers. I yanked as hard as I could until a few broke free and came to the surface. I threw them in a box with some dirt and we slipped them onto the back of the truck.

We moved in October, so once we had unloaded the truck here in Cole Harbour, one of the first things I did was find a spot for the peonies, dig a hole and put them back in the ground before the winter came.














Their new home is in front of the stone wall my mom and I installed from all the rocks our neighbors dug up next door, when they put in a new deck two years ago. We had to snake it in and around the plants we already had growing in the front.

The yellow forsythia is the same tiny plant I'd bought at the Yarmouth Garden Society plant sale, dug up and transported here. And the peonies are hard to see, but they're to the left of the forsythia, and to the left of the rose bush. The peonies are also to the right of the tulips, in front of the stone wall.

For more Summer Stock Sunday, visit Robin at Around the Island.

Kaye says Your peonies are lovely and I have always wanted to visit Novia Scotia.

Robin says I can't grow plastic flowers without killing them.

Jessica the Rock Chick says Last year I planted a whole bunch of different plants without realizing how large they would become in future years. It appears I have grown a small jungle near my front porch!