Peonies have been in cultivation for centuries; they were used as ornamental and medicinal plants for at least 2000 years. Their roots and seeds were used to treat a wide range of ailments including epilepsy and seizures. In medieval times the seeds were used as flavouring & their roots were cooked as a vegetable.

Paeonia was formerly included in the family Ranunculaceae but is now the sole member of the family Paeoniaceae.

Kelway’s in Langport, Somerset, founded in 1851, were the leading breeders of peonies in the late 19th & early 20th century and even produced a perfume which sold in an Art Deco bottle. There is a Kelway memorial in the churchyard in Huish Episcopi, where my parents lived briefly in 1967 before moving to Somerton. So I have known the Kelways nursery and their peonies for a very long time.

Peonies enjoy the conditions at Nether Moor House. I believe the oldest peonies in the garden may have been here since it was laid out in around 1930. They have short lived simple, delicate pink flowers and black seeds which sometimes germinate.

I have added many peonies in the last 30 years including some tree peonies and and some intersectional peonies. Somehow I always lose the labels & usually forget their names. Here are some I can identify.

Tree Peonies

Tree peony is something of a misnomer as they are much more shrubs than trees. Botanists refer to these shrubby peonies as Moutan or Mudan.

The process of hybridisation of tree peonies began in China as early as the 3rd or 4th century AD. They were exported to Japan by the early 1600’s where a separate process of hybridisation occurred. They reached Western Europe in the early 18th century but the main European hybridisation attempts did not begin until the early-mid 19th century,

Paeonia Delavayi

P. delavayi is a very varied species which now includes peonies with flower from deep red to yellow, some of which were previously considered separate species. At Nether Moor House the red variety self seed freely so from one small plant bought years ago, we have many P. delavayi which differ considerably.

P. Delavayi var ludlowii

Commonly known as Tibetan peony

P. daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii

Paeonia Rockii

The legendary Peony P Rockii comes from the Gansu Region of North West China. Most wild populations are now remnant relics. Many plants sold as P Rockii are in fact ‘Gansu Mudan’, which just means Tree Peony from Gansu Province. They can be identified by the dark flare at the base of their petals. They are tough plants and can survive down to minus 30 degrees C.

The first person to see this P Rockii is believed to be Reginald Farrer, the plant collector. He didn’t collect a specimen (why not?) and it was not heard of again until Dr Josef Franz Rock visited Gansu in 1925-26.

Dr Rock was an Austrian-American botanist who explored the Tibetan borderlands of Sichuan and Yunnan in the 1920s and 30s. He spent the winter at the lamasery Yamen of the Choni, at the time Choni was a small Tibetan enclave where there was a white tree peony. The monastery was almost completely destroyed and the monks killed after his departure by Muslim forces during the sectarian fighting in 1928. He photographed the plant and brought back some seeds from which most Western specimens are descended.

However, Will Mclewin of Phedar Research and Experimental Nursery in Stockport and Dezhong Chen, a Chinese botanist and nurseryman devoted years of patient research to tracking the peony’s story. They have debunked the myths and say that there is no evidence that this was the true species as opposed to a hybrid. So many Western specimens are likely not to be the true species but descended from ancient Chinese hybrids. The story is told in their book Peony rockii and Gansu Mudan, Wellesley Cambridge Press.

There are now a large number of named varieties of Gansu Mudan which are popularly referred to as Rockii or Joseph Rock.

I bought my Gansu Mudan, unnamed other than as “Rockii’, from Kiftsgate Gardens. It wasn’t flowering and I assumed it was white. It turned out to be pink.

I recently went to visit Will McLewin at his nursery in Romily in Stockport and his wonderful collection of peonies and species hellebores. I came back with a white Gansu Mudan. Images will follow when it flowers.

Itoh Peonies

More recently a new category, Itoh or intersectional peonies has been developed, which are crosses between tree peonies and herbaceous peonies. They are short, compact and their growth is mounding. They flower same time as herbaceous peonies from early to late June, and have a long flowering period, at least 3 weeks. The blooms are sterile; the large furry seedpods are empty.

Images of Paeonia ‘Bartzella’,  ‘Garden treasure’, ‘Sonoma Kaleidoscope’ to follow when they flower.