A Way to Garden by Margaret Roach

Author:Margaret Roach
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: 2019-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

I grow herbaceous peonies in a big bed for cutting, though not in the borders. I like the coral ones best.

UNASSUMING WOODLAND PEONIES

I love the blowsy, fragrant herbaceous peonies, but they don’t really match my garden, which is more woodsy shrubberies with mixed ground covers beneath than formal flower borders. I grow most of my extravagant-looking types in an out-of-the-way row specifically for cutting use. What I love in the garden (but not the vase) are smaller, more unassuming species (nonhybrid) peonies.

I have the white-flowered form of Japanese woodland peony, Paeonia obovata, tucked in a semishady spot or two (there is also a pink version to be had). But my favorite is Paeonia mlokosewitschii, more easily referred to as Molly the Witch. It gets to maybe 2 feet tall, and what I love most—yes, even more than the flowers—is how from its first hint upon emerging, its foliage is tinged with a little (or a lot) of purple-red. Molly’s blooms are a beautiful pale yellow, and like those of obovata are single and cuplike. As if their unassuming grace were not enough, each of these produces insane red-to-blue seeds in star-shaped seedpods, another treat for giving them a spot among the ferns and hostas, and the time to grow up to reproductive age.

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