Peony Saver

This past weekend, I got my hands on a bunch of five stems of peonies, flowers I've heard that cannot grow here in California because it doesn't get cold enough. Well, at the local Trader Joe's, they were selling them for about $6.50 a bunch - not bad for such a rare find.

Here's what they looked like when I took them out of the bag and placed them in a vase filled with water:


After the first night, the peonies were on their way to full blossoms. Here's a picture of the most mature stem:


That was last night. Tonight all of the blossoms have fully bloomed. Here are photos of two of them, taken without the camera's flash (too garish) but with background lighting from a desktop lamp.



Overall, I think both the blossoms and the photos turned out quite well.