Corals seem to respond to soil conditions so what is great in one area may appear washed out in another. There are few really double corals but several semidoubles. Of the ones I have seen I like Coral Supreme but only because it fades to some of the lovely shades of old ivory.

Ann Berry Cousins looks great in Oregon where soils are volcanic so depending on where you are in Virginia perhaps she would be nice in your area.

summerstar: also a Virginian here--as a rule, the corals do well and seem to set up very large root masses. To my eye, Coral Sunset appears the most "coral-ish" (and it's blooming now). Others that do well for me are Hawaiian Coral, Coral Charm and Lorelei, with Lorelei being the prettiest even if not the most coralish. For sheer production value, I like Abalone Pearl although it's not quite a coral--more like a ruddy pink/light red--it blooms its head off and is a big, robust plant. If you're in the Northern Virginia area, you can check out a very good peony selection at Merrifield Garden Center (the one on the edge of Fairfax/Oakton is the nicest branch). Many of their varieties are industry standards, but several of them come out of Viette (Martin and Andre have bred a lot of peonies, daylilies and irises which are suited to our climate and "soil") down in Fishersville--which is a fantastic day trip in and of itself. Hope that helps.

Ozzyboy: I'll keep the info for reference when ordering. Your peony collection is amazing and wish I could see it. I'm just getting started with peonies and will have my very first flowers this year. I just have three varieties so far. I find it amazing that your Coral Sunset is blooming right now! Seems earlier than growers advertise.

A good idea about Andre Viette's farm. It's just on the other side of Skyline Drive on the Blue Ridge from our place. I listen to his Saturday radio show and he often mentions Merriville Garden Center.

Maifleur: The thought of Coral Supreme turning into an old ivory sounds heavenly. How does the ivory hold up to the sun? I keep going back and thinking about the Ann Berry Cousins peony, so hearing it's a strong grower is good to know. I'll probably end up planting it..

I'm wondering what volcanic soil contains? I'm supposing it's rich, with lots of nutrients. I could add LOTS of amendments when planting, especially special things like peonies..

Thanks much. I'll remember your thoughts.

Volcanic soil depends on the chemical composition of the mountains that are either currently in your area or provided most of the soil as they weathered. These are granite, gneiss, schist, basalt, to name a few. In Virginia your soils would contain more weathered rock particles than in say Oregon or Washington since you have the Appalachian mountains that would have supplied much of your rock particles. In this area much of the uplift was from sedimentary rock such as limestone and shale.

Several of the sold out peonies from Viette sound very interesting. Any other hybridizers in your area?

summerstar: Viette's is really wonderful--bring your wallet. Through the summer months, they do workshops covering a range of subjects. Although their daylilies are more on the old-fashioned side, to see their beds in full bloom (mid-July) is just mind blowing.

The corals are early bloomers, generally coming into bloom for me after the Chinese tree peonies and before the Japanese ones. This year is odd--such a long, cold winter followed by 2 weeks of 80-90s and then back into the 60s in Fredericksburg. I'm not actually at home this week, but I'm told we're supposed to be back in the 90s this weekend. Oy!

maifleur: You could try contacting Viette directly (sold out doesn't always mean "sold out" lol). They did a lot of hybridizing with P. lobata so several of them are true eye-poppers. I don't know of any other peony breeders in the area, but William Ackerman (camellias, and siberian iris) was at the National Arboretum for ages and is active with the local camellia society. Benzinger (daylilies) was situated just to the north of Charlottesville until he retired to a nursing home. Daffodils are hybridized down in Gloucester by the Heaths and Pine Knot (hellebores) is down in Clarksville.

Maifleur: That was quite a lecture on volcanic soils. Thanks. I don't know of any hybridizers here other than Andre Viette. Here's a link to his website: www.Inthegardenradio.com. There's a very helpful lady on his staff who answers questions on their forum or on the phone. There IS a small grower here that may hybridize. Here's an email address for them: www.Weirich@peonymeadows.com. Their website is www.peonymeadows.com.

Ozzyboy: Do post here with pictures, especially of your peonies. I have instructions somewhere on how to post pictures, but it sounds complicated . . . sigh.

Just a by the way. Corals tend to grow new plants even on the fine hair roots. If you plant a coral them move it plan on having corals continuing to come up in that same spot. Someone asked today why they kept having new coral plants in an area where they had removed the plant.

I studied rocks when I was in college. For some plants it helps explain why they do well in one area but poorly in a different area with similar growing conditions.

summerstar: I know about as much as you do about uploading pics, but when I get home in about a week I'll give it a shot--piles of photos (I'm a film addict) but I do have a scanner.

maifleur: With your background, I'm hoping you might have suggestions for "fixing" my soil. Red VA clay which comes in between 5.3 and 5.7 pH in different parts of my lot. I believe at least part of the acidity is related to seepage from an underground aquifer as I live in an area with a furnace (hot spring). I'm on well water which has a very distinct sulfur smell, again, I think because of the furnace. I grow a lot of Japanese Irises, so I can't use lime to raise the pH and have been relying on removal/replacement. I'm just worried that over time the pH will creep downwards again. Any ideas on how to deal with this?

In the area that you have planted peonies and have not replaced the soil how are they acting? If the area you are in has limestone under layers sulfur should release the available calcium carbonate to make it available to the peonies. If you are in the granite/schist area instead of using limestone by incorporation use it as a top dressing around the peonies.

The lactifloras occur naturally in Mongolia but many of the other peonies are from areas similar to yours but live in pockets where the soil has less PH. Hybrids should do better in your area than straight Lactiflora's. I will look and see what I can find. I need to do some more research on your area's red soil to see if it is bauxite or iron or just what is making your soil red.

The foundation is primarily a ruddy smectite clay. While digging, there seems to be a large quantity of mica and a lesser quantity of rather small (quail-egg sized) pieces of quartz although brick sized pieces of quartz pop up from time to time. I originally tried using sand and a quantity of gypsum as an amendment with composted leaf mould, sphagnum peat, sawdust and manure as organics. Notwithstanding that I think it's the muckiest substance I've ever seen, the clay does seem to percolate a bit and Japanese irises nearby were severely injured. And a small mystery--moss has no difficulty growing on the surface even though I'd thought that iron sulphate (which I'd assumed was acidic) is used to kill moss.

Performance is a mixed bag w/regard to plants situated in the native "soil". Certain peony varieties, notably the corals :), have in fact done better than some lactifloras I brought in from China. I routinely shuttle failing peonies in the autumn up to my parents' property which has actual soil. The tree peonies are a total crapshoot--certain Chinese varieties have entirely collapsed whereas other ones have produced gigantic blooms. The Japanese varieties do modestly well but increase of all the TPs has been consistently slow.

Regarding other plants, I stopped vegetable gardening after the first year--not worth the effort; even quinoa failed to produce anything substantial.

Lilacs have had a harder time acclimatizing to the clay than the peonies--they don't die, but they grow sparingly and many of them decrease--I did do a lot of amendment in particular for them and I got the soil in their holes up to 6.5 pH; of course, the holes are surrounded by a sea of acidic clay. I learned from a neighbour that the area in which I put the lilacs had been used to grow tobacco which is hard on the soil.

With plenty of amendments, daylilies have done very well, although there is substantial variance in performance around the property. In digging up failing daylilies to ascertain what's going on below the surface, I found oftentimes that the daylily roots had only a tenuous hold on the clay and that most of their roots were situated in the mulch I'd put down. Consequently, I replace up to 70/80% of the clay in areas with daylilies. Such a large removal isn't feasible for the peonies, in large part because the quantity of mica is great enough to prevent digging much deeper than a foot with a spade and oftentimes the mica is encountered a mere few inches below the surface.

Camellias have been removed entirely from the lot, since a season or two in situ and the poor things are nearly on their death beds. Similarly, rhododendrons fail, but kurume azaleas and flowering quince do well. Japanese maples do not thrive, but dogwood, Prunus mume, pin oaks and silver maple grow alright.

That's about all I can summarize about the soil and performance in it. Oh--one anecdote: the water is acidic enough that distinct copper sulphate routinely accumulates on my shower walls, though there is very little other mineral deposit to be found (I assume the copper is being leached from my pipes).