Flower ID?

[DirtBag]

My wife just picked up some flowers from a local fair.

Can anyone help ID these?

(Midwest USA)

Thanks

[songbird]

looks like a phlox to me, but i'm not certain as i can't really see the flowers that well...

songbird

[Boron Elgar]

Coxcomb/celosia, I think.

[David E. Ross]

If they have a very good fragrance, then possibly peonies.

[Boron Elgar]

Nope...not even the leaves resemble peony.

[Boron Elgar]

[Amos Nomore]

Dianthus.

[Amos Nomore]

Retracted. Celosia looks right.

[David E. Ross]

I cannot grow peonies in my climate. The winters are too mild. The last time I saw peonies growing and blooming was seven years ago in Delaware and Pennsylvania. Thus, I could not remember how the leaves look.

[Fran Farmer]

Nope, they aren't paeonies. I agree that it's coxcomb - that flattened wide top to the stem is the clue IMO.

[Fran Farmer]

Nope. Nothing like Dianthus.

[DirtBag]

Boron Elgar said

Thanks to you all! Clearly a Coxcomb (my picture was not so good.)

What a nice flower.

[Boron Elgar]

Come visit in the spring and I will happily have you stroll through mine.

[Leon Fisk]

I was looking for a photo to show my neighbor yesterday and came across these:

Nothing special really but thought you might enjoy seeing them again :)

We've had these peonies ever since I can remember, probably ~50 years...

[Brooklyn1]

Nice photos. I like peonies and they grow very well here in the Catskills, plus deer don't eat them, but I don't plant any as their flowers don't last more than about a week before their weight tends to collapse the entire plant unless very well supported... for most of the growing season a peony bed is just a jumble of non descript green shrubs that require a lot of weeding. My next door neighbor has over

100 peony plants in a large bed that was planted when the house was first built, about 1890. He's always offering me some but I tell him no thank you, I'd rather enjoy yours.

[David E. Ross]

I was told by a local nursery that, to grow peonies, I had to buy a length of chicken wire or bird mesh about four feet wide and long enough to make a cylinder about four feet in diameter. In early November, I would have to slip this cylinder over the plant and keep it filled to the top with ice cubes until sometime in March.

I can't grow Dutch tulips either, except as winter annuals. On the other hand, I have a rosemary bush growing at the foot of my driveway that is taller than I am and a dwarf lemon tree that produces more lemons than anyone can use. When I prune my roses at the end of December and the beginning of January, I often collect a bouquet of roses for my wife. And I have never shoveled snow.

There are trade-offs for living in a mild-winter climate.

[Leon Fisk]

Not a problem here ;) Last winter I had snow shoveled 3-4 feet deep over the area where those peonies are. This picture is from Feb 2014, not quite as deep as earlier this year. The row of peonies are about 8 feet to the right of the driveway, along the right edge of the picture. The tall stake (PVC pipe) sticking up would be in the middle of them. It holds a rain gauge in warmer weather.

You lucky dog! (shoveling snow), but good exercise. No problem with tulips here either. The Holland Tulip festival is held maybe 35 miles WSW from here:

Yea, you grow a lot bigger BUGS too!

[Amos Nomore]

David, may I ask which USDA zone you inhabit?

[Amos Nomore]

Oops, disregard - I found the info on your (cool) website.