These guys are coming out all over my backyard. I think they are weeds, but since the house is relatively recently bought I want to make sure. Very fast growing. P.S. Thank you all! This forum has been very helpful in the past few years.
Looks like a peony. Peonies usually send up a much thicker clump of stems though. Could be young plants or something else. No common weeds are coming to mind that look like that.
Definitely peonies. Maybe only planted within the last year or two by the previous owner. Not 'useful' (not edible, or anything like that), but very attractive in flower.
Awesome. Love peonies! Can't believe I didn't recognize them; they did look faintly familiar. Thank you! They didn't bloom last summer (young? summer too dry?), and I tried weeding them then... They'll get much better treatment from now on.
Just some advice....remove the mulch from the base and cut down the stalks in the fall. If peonies have more than an inch of soil/mulch over the "eyes" of the base, they may not bloom. You'll see the "eyes" in the spring (they look like reddish pink rockets).
