That is exciting! I've been trying to grow peonies in Dallas, TX, but been told that it's impossible.

What is the size of the plant when you first ordered online? Are they bare root or in the pot?

Tree peonies do not require as much chilling as herbaceous peonies do. They grow and bloom along the California coast where there is no winter frost. Al

I am growing the following: Tamisudare, Rimpoh, and Taiyo from Wayside. They were 1 gal plants in pots. Black Pirate and Aphrodite came from Klehm's Songsparrow. They also were 1gal, maybe a bit larger. I think Klehm's plants are a bit more robust and a bit older. Black Pirate arrived with a bud and flowered on it. That was all last year. I received them around April, repotted them into 3gal containers and grew them on in a greenhouse until July, when I brought the pots outside in high shade and broken sun. They lost most of their leaves by October and I removed the remaining. I had heard that defoliating them in October will force them into dormancy if they aren't already. I prepared a bed with a mix of native soil and bagged bedding soil, planted them out in February. In mid March they broke dormancy and are now filling out. I have them planted where they will get morning sun and broken overhead and afternoon sun. Keep the soil moist. I've also heard that they don't need chill hours for bloom but need to go into dormancy in late fall. What kind of temperature ranges are they subject to in California where they're grown and do you have any idea of the chill hour accumulations? Unless there is some other limiting environmental factor in Dallas, I would think the temperatures would be OK. Maybe be careful of too much full sun. The tree they're planted under in my Garden is a deciduous oak, so they get a lot of early spring sunlight which decreases as the spring rolls on.

Richard