Rake away the dead foliage.  Peonies are perennials, they grow back from the root.  When you see the shoots start to emerge, give it a little fertilizer for flowering plants.  I like Miracle Grow.  This was a pretty sorry looking peony before I fed it.

Has anyone else looked at this photo, completely overlooked the chain that the birdhouse is hanging from, and thought they were looking at a gigantic barrel under a tree... just me then?  Well, ahem, um...

It's a great birdhouse - hope some birds move in soon!

LOL, I'm so glad all of you are have so much fun with my "trick" photo!
So, to put things in perspective:
The tree

The rail the bird house is hanging from

A 26 oz coffee can

Coffee can with a popsicle stick

Ok, so the only credit I can take for this, is that I supplied the materials, Popsicle sticks, a 26 oz plastic coffee can, and oxygen tubing, paint, and I cut the hole.  My 7 yo GDG put it all together.  A birdhouse.

As promised a while back, here is a pic of my Harry Lauder's Walking Stick I planted last year.  Sorry it has taken so long.  I couldn't get a good picture until we got some snow.  It just didn't show up with bare ground

I made these for my DGD, her teacher and classmates


Close up


Thanks for looking

(edited to add)
Oh, dear, I forgot to give credit to the digitizer
www.myembroideryhav en.com

This happens to be the transfer tool for my knitting machine, but a blunt needle works the same way

Sure, you can use it without the cones.  The cone has a little notch in it to hook the end of the yarn in.  Be sure to turn the crank clock-wise


The finished ball, on a cone


The kind that controls the tension for you are over $200.00

I was in Wal-Mart the other day, and they had fleece for $4.44 a yard. so I got a couple of pieces.  I used the pullover pattern from the Kwik Sew book Sewing for children.  I downloaded the puppies from here http://www.qis.net/~cpaulson/free.html



And here is DGD modeling it



Note designers touch on the left sleeve.

Here is a snap of the Buddleia I got from Parks last year



Here is the Butterflyweed I got from Burgess 2 years ago.  More about the butterfly weed here http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=45483.0



The Castor Bean that I got from Gurneys, posing with my shivering Shih tzu, that got me up at 5:30 this morning



When it dries up, I'll take a picture of my Harry Lauder's walking stick that I got from Parks last year

The zipper foot is the one with a notch on each side.  You may need a snap-on foot, a short shank foot, or a long shank foot.  Here is a picture of a couple that I have

The picture shows a short shank adapter, a snap-on adapter, snap-on zipper foot, and a short shank zipper foot. 
The zipper foot is a pretty basic part,  I'm surprised you didn't get one with your machine
Here's a tute for you  http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=28158.0