Flower blooms and buds

For Easter Sunday, I have blooms... :)

And I have a little guy who lives in my flowerbeds ... he's the shy type, always hiding under the leaves, and he lives in mortal fear of the weed-whacker. You can see it's taken some chips out of his red hat. He doesn't let himself get photographed very often, but I was quick this time. (Does anyone know why you never see any female gnomes? Would you call them gnomettes?)



Finally, here's my peony bush. I love the big fragrant blooms I'll get, but I sure hate the ANTS in them! I tried to take some blooms in to work and share, three years ago, but uggh. I was killing ants on my desk all day, despite having soaked the blooms in water first. Does anyone have any suggestions that will drive the ants away without browning the petals? A spray, perhaps?

This year, the tips of the bush got clipped down, in late winter, just as they were starting to grow, and now, for the first time, I have THREE big buds on some of the stalks, where before I've always had only one bloom per stem. I can't imagine what it'll look like when there's three blooms on that weak little stem, when usually just one bends to the ground with the weight of the flower-head.