I think some of my peonies have died. I didn't notice them turning brown, but they now look as if this is November. I don't know what to think. Peonies are basically tough, but the ones that turned brown are not the heirloom ones. I doubt anything could kill the heirlooms.
My naked ladies came up double this year, their second, two stalks instead of one. That was lovely except the extreme hot weather kept their blooming period very short. I'm still hoping the lycoris will come up--often, they don't--but from checking old photos I've discovered that they bloom in September, not August, so the story isn't over yet. I have one delphinium that stubbornly refuses to do anything anymore. It's alive, which in this climate and recent heat is a minor miracle, but it hasn't bloomed in years and I don't know what kind of fertilizer it is missing. At one time it was easily five feet tall, including the impressive cobalt blue flower stalk; now it's less that a foot tall, and no flower.
We had a lot of rain in the past couple of days, enough so probably I should go out and pull all sorts of invasive plants while the ground is soft enough to render up their roots. I can't say it's my favorite thing to do.
