Just days after the first Crinum bloomed in the garden the first Paeonia are now blooming too. That's not entirely the truth because the tree peonies bloomed about a month ago and also I usually allow a few suckers from the herbaceous rootstock of the tree peonies to grow and they bloomed about two weeks ago. However, the peonies that I'm writing about in this post are herbaceous, are not serving as the rootstock for a tree peony, and are showing off their stuff in conspicuous garden locations.
First up is Paeonia 'Sarah Bernhardt', with fully double, rich pink flowers. While I like these full flowers, they're very heavy and will perform a face plant into the mud if a spring thunderstorm drenches them while in bloom. We use large rings to support the stems, but these must be placed early as the peonies begin growing or they're very difficult to place later. Also, a really heavy rain will still weigh down the flowers and some of the stems will break where they contact the ring. Despite these drawbacks we continue enjoy these beautiful, fragrant flowers as well as the handsome clump of foliage that remains for the rest of the growing season.
Paeonia 'Sarah Bernhardt'
The other peony to start blooming this week is Paeonia 'Krinkled White'. The single, white flowers are not as fancy as the fully double 'Sarah Bernhardt', but I enjoy the contrasting yellow centers and they also have the advantage of not needing rings to support the stems. The flowers are large, but the stems are sturdy enough to support them, even in a downpour.
Paeonia 'Krinkled White'
2 comments:
I can't believe you didn't photograph the tree peonies!
The plant I love the most that I can't grow (or at least, should not try to grow) in California.
Thanks for the comment. I did photograph one of the tree peonies and linked to it in this post. I did not show the tree peony photograph inline with the post because it's not blooming now and I like the content of the posts to be timely.
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