Peonies
In the past year, we more than tripled the amount of Peonies we have planted throughout the farm property. The most exciting addition to our peony collection is an Heirloom Tree Peony called “Yao’s Yellow” - thought to have been bred in China as early as the 1100s. Peonies are a labor of both love and patience as they can take between 3-5 years to establish in the garden and begin flowering regularly. The blooms are well worth the wait, though!
Our peony gardens can be found throughout the farm, mainly in large raised beds, but the observant visitor will also find individual tree and herbaceous peonies interspersed between dahlias in the Terrace Garden, grapevine rows in the large vineyard, and near the chicken statues in the front yard.
“White Crane on Snowy Mountain” - a peony found in our main vineyard.
These beautiful cut flowers have long refrigeration and vase lives making them perfect focus flowers for our “Spring Showers of Flowers CSA” which starts May 29th. This would also be the ideal time to come tour the peony and other mid-spring flower gardens - by appointment only. If you are looking for peony-centered custom arrangements, late May through mid-June would be the ideal time to order as well.
The most common type of peony grown for cut-flowers and the home gardener is an Herbaceous Peony. On the farm, we grow two other varieties, Tree Peonies, and Itoh Peonies (a hybrid of herbaceous and tree varieties). Tree peonies take a little longer to establish, but will grow into 3’ - 5’ shrubs that don’t need to be cut back in the fall and produce a beautiful “tree” full of large flowers.
Some of our Tree Peonies that we are excited to see bloom in the coming years are Yao’s Yellow, Golden Pavillion, The King of Flowers, and Ri Yu Jin. Some favorite herbaceous include Pastel Elegance, Coral Charm, and Colonel Owen Cousins.
