One more peony before we go back to the older stuff! This young lactiflora was planted in autumn 2022 and shot up really fast in the spring. It produced two huge buds in its first spring, which makes me hopeful for what it will do in the future.

Paeonia lactiflora ‘Garden Lace’ (lactiflora = kiinanpioni) opened just a day or two after ‘Sarah Bernhardt’. It has a Japanese anemone-type flower, which makes it stand out amongst my collection of frilly doubles. Sadly, I didn’t get a picture of the flower while on the plant because I was running around doing emergency thunderstorm cutting. Since this was the first year this plant flowered, I wasn’t certain how it would cope with rain and thought I’d err on the side of caution. I will leave some on the plant next year and see if they really do stand up to water as well as Google is telling me.

Not much in the way of observations yet, since it’s early days, but look at the size of those flowers! Each one was nearly the size of my fully opened hand. I first arranged them in the vase when they were still in bud and kept on having to shift everything around to make more room as they unfurled. The little yellow pom-pom in the middle is just too cute. It’s super fragrant, too!

Final count:

• Paeonia lactiflora ‘Garden Lace’ – 1