Carol Klein is mesmerised by the pre y blooms of peonies
A symbol of good fortune and prosperity, the voluptuous beauty of peonies is mesmerising
Peonies – cottage-garden favourites straight out of a Helen Allingham painting, though their opulent blooms also inspired several post-impressionist paintings and were immortalised in high Japanese art, painted and embroidered on silk. The Japanese peony, considered the ‘king of flowers’, was originally recorded in China, then, around the eighth century, the Chinese introduced it to Japan. The peony is a favourite flower in gardens all over the world; its symbolic meaning serves as an inspiration for a variety of art forms. Both Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin used peonies as the subject of still-life paintings.
It’s a flower with a very long history (as much as 4,000 years) in China and then in Japan. For the Chinese it was regarded as a symbol of wealth, good fortune and prosperity. In Japanese culture, it symbolises much the same. In addition though, since the peony is part of an old Japanese card game (reported to have been played by gamblers sporting tattoos), it also suggests a sort of gambling daring and even a masculine devil-may-care attitude, quite unlike its character in the west. Here it’s associated with romance – it’s become one of the most popular cut flowers for weddings. Our youngest daughter requested peonies for her wedding but since it took place at the end of September, she had to settle for dahlias, Gladiolus murielae, amaryllis and hydrangeas. I’m growing several for her for her new garden which, excitingly, we can visit soon.
In the garden here we have several varieties, almost all forms of
Paeonia lactiflora, and we’ve just added a few more in the bed, which extends our little cutting garden. The best show of these voluptuous flowers we have is provided by several plants of ‘Bowl of Beauty’, with deep pink outer petals and a frilly anemone centre of palest pink.
No cottage garden would be complete, though, without the double crimson Paeonia officinalis ‘Rubra Plena’. Given an Award of Garden Merit by the RHS, this is a double-flowered form of an easy-going plant originally from Southern Europe. As with all herbaceous peonies, planting depth is all important. The tuberous roots should be just below the soil’s surface. One of the most-asked gardening questions is ‘why doesn’t my peony flower?’ and almost always the answer is ‘because it’s planted too deep’.
The exception to this rule is when planting tree peonies, which are almost always invariably grafted onto a rootstock. In their case, the union between the rootstock and the grafted variety should be at least 15cm (6in) below the soil surface, which will encourage the variety to make its own roots and discourage the rootstock from suckering.
Though the flowers of peonies are short-lived, nothing can touch them for sheer, seductive glamour. The fact that they’re so ephemeral makes them all the more precious.