Sounds pretty normal to me. I'm in zone 6a upstate NY, and my herbeceous peonies will usually start emerging towards to the end of february, grow slowly through March, and don't kick up into full gear until April. If they are only a few inches high and still red, they are very cold hardy. Tree peonies tend to start a bit later.

*phew* Thanks for that!! I was so worried! It's the first time I've had my own peonies, so I wasn't sure if it was ok for them to do this or not :)

This year it does seem to be warming up over a month earlier than it did last year and with the increasing daylight, it will only continue getting steadily warmer as it does look like we have an early spring.

Some of my tree peony seeds which were not planted as deep as they should have been are starting to emerge already, and buds on both herbeceous and tree peony species are starting to show swelling so I'll assume it might be happening everywhere else too.

At this rate, I will probably have many seedlings with leaves well formed already by the beginning of March.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sprouting tree peony seedling