Buddleia oh buddleia.

My new favorite plant. Sure, it might not be rare or romantic, but after you've been gardening for 10 years and suffered through voles eating your bulbs, plants just up and dying for no reason, and the occasional groundhog attack, never mind realizing that your garden only has flowers for May and June, you start to appreciate the humble butterfly bush. Nothing will eat it, and ours has been blooming 3 months straight! I make sure to deadhead any flowers that look crispy, and now it's a large and glorious monster.

Since I'm a gardener who likes non-fussy, non-dead plants, I also love my peonies. It's too bad they bloom for such a short period of time. That's why I'm focusing on the butterfly bushes now. I also have two more peonies coming in in September. This is what I have, as far as peonies and butterfly bushes:

Peonies

East side of the house:Karl Rosenfield(nice fragrance, blooms late, needs no staking)
West side of house: Green on White Jade Tower, Blue Butterfly(both Chinese tree peonies, Blue Butterfly is a rockii tree peony)
Front yard(south-facing): Msr. Jules Elie (a giant monster of a peony that produces a ridiculous number of ridiculously large flowers, smells wonderful but needs staking badly and no peony cage is big enough), Duchess de Nemours(a very nice white, needs no staking), Coral Charm(not performing well, needs to be moved as I planted it too close to Duchess de Nemours)
Back yard(north-facing): Coral Supreme(beautiful flowers but lousy growth habit, tall and spindly), Paula Fay(nice and vibrant fuchsia, needs no staking), Bowl of Beauty(common but wonderful plant, great habit and has many long-lasting flowers)

Buddleia

Front yard: Petite Plum(aka Nanho Purple), Miss Ruby

As for peonies, I have Moonstone and Philomele coming in in the fall. I'd love a Bartzella but it's way out of my price range. I also would like to get Cheddar Charm and Mrs. FDR...some day.

I feel like it would be more prudent to lay off the peonies and get more butterfly bushes, since they have a much longer blooming period. The one that I absolutely have to have(and can't find) is Pink Delight, followed by White Ball. Honeycomb would be nice as well... I just feel like ripping up huge chunks of the lawn. It's tough having almost an acre of land!

Speaking of projects, I took advantage of the bargain bin at Hobby Search and...get this...bought two dolls I already have. Ha ha ha! I can barely afford it, but I wanted to customize some dolls and I got two for the price of one! I can't do them right away because I have a lot of work to do, but I'm planning something interesting.