This is one of those plants that turns you into a show-off – at any rate mine has. When it is in flower even the postman gets dragged over to see it. The flowers are white, as delicate as tissue paper, and cover the plant’s shiny green foliage. It is a beautiful sight. The new shoots start pushing through in February and are a dark olive and bronze colour. It is one of the few peonies that grows in shade (mine are under the canopy of a large bay tree). It sets seed but I also divide my plants every few years during August.
A native of the Himalayas, it needs cool, shady woodland conditions.
Paeonia emodi. The favourite of all my peonies.