A Grower’s Guide to Today’s Finest Varieties
The peony is, by any measure, the most extravagant flower the temperate garden has to offer. No other hardy perennial produces blooms of such scale, such complexity of petal, or such depth of fragrance — and no other plant does so on a schedule so reliably punctual that experienced gardeners can set their calendar by the first unfurling bud. Yet for much of the twentieth century the peony was treated as a fixed quantity, a plant whose possibilities had been largely exhausted by the great hybridisers of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. That assumption has proved comprehensively wrong.
The past four decades have seen an extraordinary renaissance in peony breeding, driven by work in North America, the Netherlands, China, and New Zealand. Breeders have extended the colour range into coral, champagne, and near-black. They have produced varieties with stems strong enough to hold their flowers upright without staking. They have crossed the familiar herbaceous peony with tree peonies to create the intersectional or Itoh hybrid, a class that has changed what is possible in the peony border entirely. And they have brought the wild species back into cultivation, revealing a simplicity and elegance quite different from the baroque fullness of the traditional double.
This guide is for the gardener who loves peonies and wants to know what the contemporary world of the genus has to offer.
Herbaceous Peonies
The herbaceous peony — Paeonia lactiflora and its hybrids — is the foundation of the genus in cultivation. It dies back completely in autumn, emerges with great drama in spring, flowers in May and June with an intensity that is almost alarming, and then settles into a dignified, dark-leaved presence in the border for the remainder of the season. It is long-lived to a degree that few garden plants match: a well-sited peony will outlast the gardener who planted it, and century-old specimens are not unknown.
Modern lactiflora breeding has focused on three problems that afflicted older varieties: weak stems that collapsed under the weight of fully open flowers, a flowering season concentrated into a single brief fortnight, and a limited colour palette that offered little beyond white, pink, and crimson.
Coral Charm (Herbaceous · Paeonia ‘Coral Charm’)
No peony introduced in the twentieth century has been more influential than Coral Charm, raised by Samuel Wissing and registered in 1964. It brought a colour previously unknown in the genus — a deep, saturated coral-orange that fades as the flower ages to a warm peach — and it did so on a plant of exceptional vigour with stems strong enough to require no staking. It is a semi-double, which means the great boss of golden stamens at its centre is visible through the outer petals, giving it a luminosity that fully double varieties cannot match. The scent is light and fresh. It remains, sixty years after introduction, the benchmark for colour innovation in the herbaceous peony.
Sarah Bernhardt (Herbaceous · Paeonia ‘Sarah Bernhardt’)
Introduced by Lemoine in 1906 and still among the five best-selling peonies in the world, Sarah Bernhardt is proof that greatness requires no revision. The flowers are a pure, clear apple-blossom pink — not the blowsy, over-sweet pink of lesser varieties but something cooler and more precise — arranged in full, perfectly formed double blooms of great size. The fragrance is the classic lactiflora rose scent: sweet, rich, and persistent. Its longevity in commerce reflects not nostalgia but genuine merit: it flowers reliably, grows strongly, and looks exactly right in almost any garden context.
Dinner Plate (Herbaceous · Paeonia ‘Dinner Plate’)
The name is not hyperbole. Dinner Plate produces flowers of exceptional size — frequently exceeding twenty centimetres across at full opening — in a warm, deep rose-pink that holds its colour well in sun. The form is a full double, with petals arranged in a loose, informal bomb shape that has great charm without the rigid formality of some exhibition varieties. Stems are strong for so large a flower, and the plant grows to around ninety centimetres. For sheer impact in the early summer border, it is difficult to surpass.
Buckeye Belle (Herbaceous · Paeonia ‘Buckeye Belle’)
For gardeners who find the traditional pinks and whites of the lactiflora world too gentle, Buckeye Belle offers an alternative of considerable drama. The flowers are a deep, velvety maroon-red — as dark as any herbaceous peony currently available — with a semi-double form that exposes a central ring of yellow stamens as a striking counterpoint. It flowers earlier than most lactifloras, often in late April, and grows to a compact seventy centimetres. The combination of dark colour, early flowering, and modest size makes it exceptionally useful at the front of a border, where it can be interplanted with late tulips of similar hue.
Itoh & Intersectional Hybrids
The intersectional peony — known universally in the trade as the Itoh hybrid, after the Japanese nurseryman Toichi Itoh who first succeeded in crossing herbaceous and tree peonies in the 1940s — represents the most significant development in peony cultivation of the past century. Itoh died before his seedlings flowered, and it was left to an American nurseryman, Louis Smirnow, to introduce the first four named varieties in 1974. What those plants revealed astonished the horticultural world.
The Itoh hybrid inherits the best qualities of both parents. From the herbaceous peony it takes the ability to die back cleanly in winter and re-emerge reliably in spring. From the tree peony it takes larger, more exotic flowers, stronger stems, and an extended colour range that includes the yellows, golds, and coral-oranges impossible in pure lactifloras. The plants are vigorous, typically spreading wider than they are tall, and they flower for a longer period than either parent — often three weeks or more.
Bartzella (Itoh Hybrid · Paeonia ‘Bartzella’)
Bartzella is the peony that made the Itoh hybrid world-famous. Introduced by Roger Anderson in 1986, it produces enormous, fully double flowers of a clear, luminous yellow — a colour that had never before been achieved in a garden-worthy, repeat-reliable peony. Each flower can reach twenty-five centimetres across, and a mature plant will carry dozens simultaneously, the sheer weight of bloom almost unbelievable on a hardy perennial. The scent is a lemon-citrus sweetness, lighter than the rose notes of the lactifloras but distinctly present. It is expensive — rooted divisions command prices that reflect the slow propagation of intersectional hybrids — but justified entirely by the spectacle a mature plant provides.
Cora Louise (Itoh Hybrid · Paeonia ‘Cora Louise’)
Where Bartzella astonishes, Cora Louise beguiles. The flowers are white — a warm, slightly ivory white — with a flare of lavender-purple at the base of each petal that deepens toward the centre, creating a two-toned effect of great delicacy. The form is semi-double to double depending on the season and the plant’s age, and the flowers are produced in extraordinary profusion on a wide-spreading plant of around sixty centimetres in height. It is among the earliest of the Itoh hybrids to flower and is reliably scented with a light, sweet fragrance. For the gardener who finds pure yellow too bold, Cora Louise offers the drama of the Itoh class in a softer, more complex register.
Julia Rose (Itoh Hybrid · Paeonia ‘Julia Rose’)
Julia Rose is the shape-shifter of the Itoh world. The flowers open from raspberry-pink buds into blooms that shift through coral, apricot, and finally cream as they age, so that a single plant in full bloom carries flowers in three or four distinct colour states simultaneously. The effect is kaleidoscopic and, in the right border context, dazzling. The form is semi-double, with petals loosely arranged around prominent golden stamens, and the plant grows to around seventy centimetres with excellent stem strength. It is one of the most photographed peonies currently in cultivation, and deservedly so.
Scrumdidlyumptious (Itoh Hybrid · Paeonia ‘Scrumdidlyumptious’)
The name is irresistible and the flower matches it. Bred by Don Hollingsworth and introduced in 2002, this Itoh hybrid produces fully double flowers in a warm, rich pink with peach and apricot tones that shift with light and age. The blooms are large, fragrant, and carried on strong stems above attractively cut, dark green foliage that remains presentable long after flowering is over. It is a reliable and relatively freely available variety that offers the Itoh experience — extended flowering, strong growth, superior foliage — without the extreme prices commanded by some of the earlier introductions.
Tree Peonies
The tree peony — Paeonia suffruticosa and its relatives — is a different creature from the herbaceous kinds. It does not die back in winter but retains a permanent woody framework, building year by year into a substantial shrub that may eventually reach two metres or more. It flowers earlier than the herbaceous peonies, often in late April or early May, and the individual flowers are typically larger and more architecturally complex, with a translucent, silken quality to the petals that is quite unlike anything else in the spring garden.
Tree peonies are slower to establish than herbaceous kinds — a newly planted specimen may do very little in its first two seasons — but this patience is repaid with interest. A mature tree peony of twenty or thirty years is a garden monument, its flowering season anticipated with the intensity of a rare event.
Renkaku (Flight of Cranes) (Tree Peony · Paeonia suffruticosa ‘Renkaku’)
Among the hundreds of Japanese tree peony varieties that have reached Western cultivation, Renkaku stands apart for the purity and distinction of its flowers. They are white — the most brilliant, clean white of any tree peony widely available — with a slight ruffling at the petal edges that catches the light, and a boss of golden stamens at the centre of perfect precision. The plant grows to around 1.2 metres with an upright, architectural habit. In the right setting — against a dark hedge, or in a position where the low morning light can illuminate the petals from behind — it is one of the most breathtaking sights the spring garden offers.
High Noon (Tree Peony · Paeonia ‘High Noon’)
Bred by Edward Saunders and introduced in 1952, High Noon was a pioneering cross between P. suffruticosa and the yellow species P. lutea, and it remains among the finest yellow tree peonies in cultivation. The flowers are a clear, bright canary yellow — paler than Bartzella but warmer than a primrose — with lightly ruffled petals and a pleasant, light fragrance. Unlike many yellow tree peonies, it is reliably repeat-flowering, often producing a second flush of bloom in late summer. It grows vigorously to around 1.5 metres and is considerably more tolerant of adverse conditions than most of its class.
Shimadaijin (Tree Peony · Paeonia suffruticosa ‘Shimadaijin’)
For sheer depth of colour among tree peonies, Shimadaijin is the variety most often cited by specialists. The flowers are a rich, dark purple-violet — a colour with genuine blue in it, exceptional in the genus — of semi-double form, with a silken texture to the petals that is most evident in strong morning light. It grows to around a metre with a compact, manageable habit and flowers reliably in early May. It is one of the most requested tree peonies in specialist nurseries, and can be difficult to obtain in quantity, which reflects genuine demand rather than artificial scarcity.
Species & Near-Species Peonies
Beyond the cultivated hybrids lies a genus of remarkable wild species, most of them native to central Asia and the Mediterranean, that have until recently been largely the province of the specialist collector. They are now being grown more widely, partly in response to a broader cultural interest in naturalistic gardening, and they offer a simplicity and ecological honesty quite different from the cultivated doubles.
Species peonies are typically single-flowered, with five to ten petals arranged around a prominent central boss of stamens and carpels. They are often smaller in flower than the cultivated kinds but more generous in other ways: easier to grow, less demanding of rich soil, and possessed of ornamental seedheads that extend their season of interest well into summer.
Paeonia mlokosewitschii (Molly the Witch)
The common name — bestowed by a gardener who found the botanical name unpronounceable and declined to try — conceals one of the most quietly beautiful of all spring flowers. P. mlokosewitschii, native to the Caucasus, produces single flowers of the palest primrose yellow, large and luminous, on grey-green foliage in late April. They last only a week or ten days, but the ornamental display does not end there: by late summer the seedpods have split open to reveal seeds of brilliant scarlet and blue-black that are as decorative as any cultivated fruit. It grows to around sixty centimetres and is fully hardy in most temperate gardens.
Paeonia obovata
A woodland species from eastern Asia, P. obovata is the peony for the shaded garden. It tolerates conditions of partial to deep shade that would defeat any lactiflora, producing its single, cup-shaped flowers — white, or in the variety alba, an especially pure white — on sixty-centimetre stems in May. The foliage is handsome throughout the season, with a bronze cast in spring that ages to rich green. In autumn it produces the same spectacular seedpods as mlokosewitschii, and it naturalises slowly into substantial colonies given time and undisturbed conditions.
A Note on Growing Conditions
The peony has a reputation for difficulty that is only partially deserved. The rules are few but they are non-negotiable.
Sun is essential. A peony will survive in partial shade but it will not flower well, and over time a shaded plant declines to a clump of foliage producing two or three thin-stemmed blooms where it once carried twenty. Choose the sunniest position available, with at least six hours of direct light in the growing season.
Depth of planting is the issue most responsible for disappointed gardeners. Herbaceous peonies must be planted with the eyes — the red growth buds on the crown — no more than two to five centimetres below soil level. Plant deeper and the plant will grow and grow and simply refuse to flower. Many a peony blamed for non-performance has merely been planted by an over-enthusiastic gardener who buried it as they would a daffodil bulb. Tree peonies and Itoh hybrids are less sensitive to depth but reward generous planting holes enriched with well-rotted organic matter.
Peonies resent disturbance. They can be moved, divided, and transplanted, but they will sulk for a season or two afterwards. The wisest policy is to choose the position with care and then leave the plant alone. A peony given good soil, adequate sun, and freedom from interference will reward the gardener with increasing magnificence for decades. It is one of the very few garden plants about which it can honestly be said that neglect, beyond the first few years, is very nearly as effective as attention.
The peony does not ask much. What it gives in return — those extraordinary flowers, that fragrance, that sense of annual abundance — is entirely disproportionate to the asking.
