Not gonna lie, I was transplanting the berry hedge all day and completely forgot it was Monday until about 9PM. However, this being Finland at the height of summer, we do not know the meaning of night, let alone darkness. So I zipped back out and cut a vase full of peonies and photographed them outside real quick.
Just in time, too, because I heard the rumble of thunder in the distance just as I stepped out the door. For some reason, the first thunderstorm of the year always comes within the first week of my peonies blooming, like they just can’t wait to soak and shatter my flowers after all the time I spent waiting for them. So rude.
They didn’t succeed, however, and here is my lovely peony assortment for this week’s vase! SoSers will notice most were mentioned in my post there, but there’s a newcomer in the mix as well.
- ITOH Hybrid ‘Lollipop’ — the cream ones with the magenta stripes
- Paeonia lactiflora ‘Bowl of Beauty’ — the one with the dark pink outer petals and the floofy white inner ones. It also smells lovely.
- Herbaceous Hybrid ‘Lemon Chiffon’ — the creamy yellow double
- ITOH Hybrid ‘Love Affair’ — an all-white double with amazing fragrance
- Paeonia lactiflora ‘Garden Lace’ — the one with light pink outer petals and a fluffy yellow center
Find more Monday vases over at Cathy’s Rambling in the Garden.
10 responses to “In a Vase on Monday | 29th June 2026”
I can’t even imagine so much light….so cool. And your peonies are gorgeous!
It’s genuinely disorienting even after for than a decade of summers. I still catch myself thinking it’s late afternoon and finding out it’s half past ten 😅 The flip side is that it’s dark by three in December… really a feast or famine sort of deal!
Glad you got them rescued before the storm! Thanks for sharing. My Peonies had a bad year, so I appreciate all the lovely photos of them ’round the web.
Sorry about your peony year — that always sucks, given their bloom window is so short. Mine were late and slow too, and I spent most of June anxiously checking buds. The one I usually expect to do well ended up getting shaded out by a maple… and then stepped on by my husband while he was cutting down that same maple! Do you know what went wrong, or was it just one of those seasons?
They are all lovely, and the added bonus is the scent. It’s true, the weather gods must despise peonies and the same happens here every year. The only answer is to cut them and enjoy them indoors!
That’s exactly the conclusion I’ve come to. Which is actually why I’ve located most of them in the flower field, which was always intended more as a freeform cutting garden than a showcase. All the bouquets, none of the guilt!
What an interesting mix of peonies – and I am glad they were not destroyed by any thunderstorms (I do love a good thunderstorm, but so far they have passed us by recently) – the pale yellow one with the streaks is fascinating
That’s ‘Lollipop’, an ITOH hybrid I only bought this spring, and every single bloom has come out streaked differently — I have no idea what it’ll do next and that’s most of the appeal. We’ve only had one good thunderstorm pass over us this year, actually — it’s mostly been mild showers. Which is rather odd but we still have a month to go so they might still be coming.
I’m glad you managed to beat out the storm and cut those peonies in time, Angela. It’d have been a shame if the thunderstorm took out those beautiful flowers. I can’t imagine enjoying sunlight well past 9pm but I bet I could get used to it!
With heavy blackout curtains, it’s doable lol. It’s the complete lack of light in the winter that gets most people, especially those of use from sunnier climates. At least those of us with too may houseplants usually have LED grow lights on timers clipped at every window through those months, which gives a much of a boost through those dark months.