Eye-Catcher of the Month

                                                    
                                                      Tree peony Ling Hua Zhan Lu


Because my garden is not specially neat and tidy and I'm always trying to grow vegetables among the flowers, I do need to make sure there is some spectacular or interesting plant to focus on  throughout the year. This month my two Chinese tree peonies really catch the eye. Their enormous satin flowers are blowsy and unkempt, as though they'd been to a good party the night before. Mine are about three and a half feet tall (but they can grow to five feet) and absolutely covered in masses of enormous, exotic flowers. Their names fully live up to their looks. The pink frilly-knicker one is called Ling Hua Zhan Lu which apparently translates as Limpid Dews on Two-horned Flowers, the deep red one is Wu Long Peng Shen or Black Dragon. From the moment they show their first huge buds and then their satin petals they astonish and delight.

                                     
                                         Tree peony Wu Long Peng Shen or Black Dragon



The flowers don't last very long but peony leaves are attractive in their own right in both shape and colour, which is a darkish green with purplish tinges, so they remain satisfying sculptural objects long after the main exhibition is over. If the weather is fine they will go on flowering until May with any luck but if we get wild winds they will get blown about and lose their petals quite quickly.  The pink one is near the house and can be seen from the kitchen window. The red one looks glorious even from behind the yew hedge where I have a secret seat. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     A Black Dragon bud                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                                   

 My two peonies were planted about five years ago and I don't bother them too much except for mulching with my own compost in early spring and dead-heading when the flowers are over. They are pretty independent and don't like being fussed over - although I do cut off the odd stem if it gets in the way of or overshadows something trying to grow nearby.

I have wondered whether to grow a small clematis through them such as Clematis integrifolia Hendryetta (pink) or Jan Fopmar (purple) which both flower from July to September  but I  haven't got around to it yet. These clematis  only grow to about 5ft and flower from July to September so would fit in nicely.
                                                                                     

                                                                                   



The pink peony is quite near the house and grows next to a patch of garlic I planted last autumn. But you really don't notice the garlic except as something green and grassy and a foil for the peony. Peonies are good for  indoor arrangements, if you can actually bear to cut one of those precious flowers.