The Adulation of the Peonies

I had gotten it into my head that I wanted peonies. "They must be planted in October," my mother insisted. "It's the timing for a peony," she repeated firmly over the phone. I tried not to roll my eyes, but I had a very small patch of garden area in front of my house, and I thought I'd get her advice before diving in. I thought it would be simple — just buy a one-gallon pot or a two-gallon pot like any flower, and simply plant them in spring, but little did I understand that most gardeners and most garden centers only sell peonies by the root, not the flower itself, and you have to gently plant the root in the fall. And then tend to them, very carefully.

I'm not an expert gardener, but I have experience with peonies through my grandmother. She had peonies planted all around her cottage in Wisconsin that had probably rooted and grown there for over fifty years. Every spring, they would bloom, and I remember that they were huge, luxurious blooms, white and pink, and they smelled heavenly. I don't know exactly when my love of peonies began because I certainly hadn't thought of them for years until after moving to Florida, when, at some point, I realized peonies don't grow there. Or the other thousands of varieties of flowers you get up north, like Dahlias, lilacs, or snapdragons, or gentle, sweet-smelling flowers like Hyacinths. I suppose I started to miss them sort of unconsciously, although I had a lot of fun experimenting with tropical plants in those days. Clumping bamboo was fun to grow, and beautiful too. 

Once in a while, in Florida, in my local grocery store, I would stop in my tracks if I saw a few precious stems of Peonies sitting in the flower section. It was a rare opportunity. If you didn't buy them at once, they'd disappeared within hours.  I remember taking a sort of weird, secretive pleasure if I managed to grab the last few peonies for sale and place them in a vase on the table like I had won a small jackpot. A masterpiece of nature. 

I knew I was not alone in my adulation of the peonies, because as a graphic designer, I had worked as a freelancer for a local flower shop that did exclusive wedding events in the area. Peonies were often ordered for thier weddings, for the bride's bouquet, the tables, and every kind of assortment you can imagine - and at a huge expense, since they do not grow in the hot southern hemisphere. And that's also where I grew to love the garden rose as well, but let's not get into garden roses right now. I give garden roses a nod, but peonies are more of an obsession for me. They are not known as the "king" of flowers for anything, you know. It was very sad that later, and maybe symbolically trajic that after my mother sold the cotage the new owners ripped out my grandmother's peonies. My mother sobbed when she found out and couldn't understand why anyone would rip out peonies. My only thought was that the new owners had no idea how long it takes to root one, or any idea about gardening. That week, I ordered my mother about 25 different kinds of orchids. The only flower (obsession) that does well in Florida climates, where she had moved to. 

Should it have surprised me that I am not alone? This love for peonies is felt by many gardeners around the world. In fact, there are entire Reddit and Facebook posts about how to plant the peonies' roots, or oh dear! My dogs dug up my peonies, or (with a picture posted), is this peonies' roots still alive? A list of people will answer as if the love of peonies is a part of a secret peony society. Actually, there probably is a secret peony society. 

To get back to my story, I did plant my peonies' roots in the fall. I ordered the roots from Amazon, planted them in October, and got one tiny stem that popped up for a while. I kept trying to make sure it grew. Barely taller than a blade of grass, I obsessed with it, until one day my son accidentally chopped it down when he was weed wacking the front. I guess that's when I began to understand that anyone with a bushy, tall peony bush was a savvy gardener and one that should be admired, and envied. 

The peony's symbolic journey actually began in China, where they have been cultivated for over 2,000 years. At one time in China, the cultivation of rare peony varieties became an obsession among Tang aristocrats, with single plants selling for outrageous prices.

Chinese philosophers used peonies in their writings about the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge. They believed examining a peony’s structure, understanding the conditions that produced its beauty, and appreciating the subtleties of its form were a kind of exercise that led to wisdom. Its beauty encodes truths about order, harmony, and the patterns underlying all existence.

All that siad, I hope the new roots I bought from Lowe's do a little better this year, and I'm happy to join the generations of cultivators around the world with an adulation for the peonies.