We bought an old farm just this past summer. I got to know the elderly lady who homesteaded the place, for just a little while, before she passed away. She said that she'd had peonies growing "around the perimeter of the entire yard", but that the people who'd lived here for the past several years had mowed them down every year.

The "perimeter of the yard" is hard to define, as this is a farm house with fields around it.

It sounds like the peonies were quite old and well-established before they were mown.

Do you think they'll come back? What should I do about mowing the yard until I figure out where the peonies were? I have walked all over, and can't find a sign of them yet.