I’m taking a break from cataloguing the older plants today because I wanted to share one of my favorite debuts this season. This peony was planted out late summer/early autumn of last year and you can see what it looked like in the slideshow below. All I ever saw of it were two tiny leaf stalks, while the other three varieties I planted at the same time produced several shoots. It was a bit disconcerting.

What I found out this year was that although I wasn’t seeing much happening above ground, Paeonia herbaceous hybrid ‘Lemon Chiffon’ was industriously building its root system below. This spring, it once again produced just one large stem but it easily outdistanced all its neighbors in height and leaf size. Although it’s labeled as a lactiflora hybrid, I suspect there must be a tree peony somewhere in its lineage. It also produced a very large and very fragrant creamy yellow bloom — the first peony in the cutting garden to do so. There’s just something so refreshing about yellow peonies. The flowers are supposed to grow more doubled as the plant matures, so I’m looking forward to increasingly spectacular displays from this little one.

Final count:

• Paeonia herbaceous hybrid ‘Lemon Chiffon’ – one promising ingenue of a plant