Since you live in Ohio, you should probably grow 'Buckeye Belle'.

These are some of our favorites: 'Festive Maxima' (white with red swirl center), 'Sarah Bernhardt' (pink), 'Karl Rosenfield' (fuchsia), 'Mons Jules Elie' (pink), 'Ann Cousins' (white), 'Shawnee Chief' (red), and 'Dr Alexander Fleming' (pink).

In addition to the ones Flowerfarmer mentions, I also like Mrs F.D. Roosevelt (light pink, cupped flowers), Paula Fay (intense hot pink) and Peppermint (white with red stripes).

'Florence Nicholls', white w/ a pink blush, & 'Ann Cousins', white, have performed well in my garden for 20+ yrs. They both have strong, sturdy stems that don't need support.

I was recently at Edelmans Peonies near Salem, Oregon. While we were there there was wind blowing icy blasts so hard that it defeted some people who would have walked the fields. However, It did not defeat me and what I saw led me to buy or order several of them. In particular, Pink Pom Pom, a single pink stood upright as though the day was perfectly calm, and was covered in gorgeous rose pink flowers. I also bought a second Coral Charm, Garden Lace and Rozella. Garden Lace has beautiful shell pink single flowers with a golden puff in the middle on rigid stems and Rozella is a double candy (DEEP ROSE?)pink. Red CHARM is another that looked great. Mr Ed was very floriforous but bent down with the icy blast. However, with that one you get two for the price of one as the flowers come out either white or pink at the same time so you get both. Some of the yellow intersectional hybrids were magnificant but I don't buy $100 Plants for my cutting garden,LOL.

Visiting a peony garden in bloom is to be highly recommended! You can see that some of the flowers that look dull in the catalog are gorgeous and some caught at their fleeting moment of beauty by photographers were flattened and their centers were browning, so I wouldn't want my customers to see them at that ugly stage!

Another question to check out is what the vase life of each is. Last week I used a lovely wine red one (The one peony I have lost identification of!) and even though I picked it in the marshmallow stage and kept it refrigerated, it opened fully and dropped its petals within 3 days in one of my commercial accounts. This is not good in a Drs office. Only my old red one and the wine dark one are open yet here for me...oh yes, Paula Fay and Coral Charm are also. I check the other buds often. I put in 13 different ones 3 years ago and they are blooming nicely this year for the first time. I had just a few blooms of Paula and Coral Charm last year.

I've grown most of the varieties mentioned already, just thought I'd throw in that Shawnee Chief is a much better performer than Kansas. And Karl Rosenfeld's shape isn't so great once it's fully open. It's only semidouble with some yellow stamens showing between various petals. It's just not as full a look and doesn't sell as well as Shawnee Chief. Kansas doesn't last as long.

I have to admit that I was the wimp who gave up on the rainy, cold, windy peony field at Adelman's while Lizalily kept on keeping on. I couldn't feel my fingers any more. I'm not the tough gardener I thought I was.... But I highly recommend visiting a peony farm in bloom if you can. Nothing tells you about the height, real color, and stem strength of a variety like seeing it in person - especially in the rain and wind, the worst possible condition for the really big doubles. Like Lizalily, I bought a Coral Charm. It's just barely double but the color is so gorgeous, it doesn't matter. I plan to get a Mister Ed (pink and white flowers separately on the same plant) but will support it. There are plenty others I want, too.

Jeanne

Thanks for all your great suggestions! From the catalog descriptions it's very hard to judge vase life and fragrance - both really important to our customers.

Last year the grocery stores in Cleveland started carrying peonies - at very low prices. It hurt us - especially with the standard sized blooms. Coral Charm and Sarah Bernhardt still sold well.

Flowerfarmer, I did buy locally a plant of Buckeye Belle. Very handsome, but they don't hold well for us.

Thanks again.

Haha! I wasn't going to tell on you Jeanne but I had a twinkle in my eye when I wrote that! Jeanne and I met here on Garden Web and formed a real Flower Friendship. We just took a trip through the Willamentte Valley of Oregon and it was a total sensation of color and fragrance...and wind and rain! Jeanne didn;t beleive that I am totally insane until we had been together for 15 minutes..............................