First love
Frank’s peony addiction gripped him from a young age and now he just can’t get enough of this flower’s perfect, albeit fleeting, beauty
Peonies were Frank’s first flower love, and his devotion to them remains true, even though their beauty is so fleeting
There is a vivid childhood memory of my cousin Michael taking me to see a flower in his family’s garden, and of astonishment at the sight of it. “It’s called a peony,” he said, in a tone as though the thing might vanish were it not named with sufficient reverence. I knew roses and dahlias from home, but nothing had quite prepared me for something that might have the perfection of one and the size of the other and be yet elevated into a sphere of beauty beyond the ambitions of either. The name and the image stuck.
Neither of my parents were gardeners and so, when I demanded of my mother why we had no peony, as I doubtless did, she may have answered that they flowered for too short a time to be worth growing. That kind of need for value is a good indication of someone not being one of us. A real gardener will take any amount of trouble over a plant that flowers for five minutes at two in the morning every third year if they love it enough. Compared with some of the things I cosset, a peony is lavish in the length of its season. Compared to all of them it is no trouble at all.
Which always makes me think that there are not nearly enough peonies in the garden. I go to friends more generously endowed – particularly friends at Stockton Bury, just down the road near Leominster, who have some of the best peonies, both tree and herbaceous, in the country (and are open to the public, so you can go too) – and come away with a wish list, of which at least one should be obtainable. Still, I am decades away from satisfaction.
Once, when I was naively self-disciplined, I thought that there was room for only one tree peony in a small garden, and stood in front of Kelways’ stand at Chelsea and decided that the most beautiful was ‘Mrs William Kelway’. She is white and double with glaucous leaves and I have her still and, though I have long renounced the foolishness of thinking that one was enough, she has retained her position as the most beautiful. The only problem with these doubles can be that their heads get weighed down by rain, but Mrs W can take a shower or two. If there is a heavy downpour, a little shake of each flower will set her right again. If the weather is set irredeemably rotten, her best effort is picked and brought into the house.
If that all seems a bit much, then the singles and species need no attention at all, except maybe a curtailing prune immediately after flowering. When choosing one, always take the leaf into consideration, as it can be beautifully cut and coloured and a decorative object in itself. My favourite is an unnamed one with small dark red flowers, which I admired on the terrace of a friend in Holland, who allowed me to take a couple of Irish cuttings, so now it graces my terrace also. Tree peonies look best when growing out of stone (though it was brick in the Dutch case).
Then the herbaceous come in, just as the trees are making their exit. No question here of restricting numbers. They survive, happily, in clay or sand, and fit in anywhere: awkward corner or open border. And, when they are finished their performance, retire unfussily, not seeming to mind the lolloping of ungainly, come-lately neighbours. When you come across a garden that has been neglected for years, you will often find a peony to be one of the few survivors, patient among the brambles and couch.
There are endless cultivated hybrids and few you would spurn (some a rather nasty shade of pink toothpaste). More beautiful still are some of the species, most famously Paeonia mlokosewitschii, which flowers early, and just long enough for you to learn how to pronounce her name. A sure way to feel like a child again.
A real gardener will take any amount of trouble over a plant that flowers for five minutes at two in the morning every third year if they love it enough