Mark’s Bloomin’ Journal

Not THE bombs… I refer to the flower form of certain Peonies that we now have up for sale on Flowerbud.com. It is one of those rare years when we have a small portion of a giant crop just making harvest the week of Mother’s Day. It is so rare that one gets to sell product with such little arm twisting that it leaves an indelible impression upon us all. The initial impression is red, and then some ( and with maybe just a little of the green in the making ) as the variety that obliged/and is still obliging us is the awesome Red Charm. Its a show stopper that is going to make your jaw drop and have you uttering all manner of inane sounds… much as if your were cradling a better than average looking newborn. You might also think of expanding you vocabulary of inanities because ‘Red Charm’ will no sooner be ever so softly dropping its billion petals onto your kitchen table ( simply the best place in the house for such beauty ) than ‘Coral Charm’ will be arriving in from the fields, flaunting its blend of salmon and rose colorings, guaranteed is a double take and thence to full on swoon. And so it goes… a harvest season lasting perhaps three weeks and (with luck) a fourth week to finish off sales.

Wave after wave of colors, larger than believable flower forms and all with tantalizing textures. Are you feeling the need, the want, the desire to buy what you remember from Grandma’s garden back in the Mid West?  The flowers depicted on Chinese Porcelain, stitched into an old tapestry, printed on modern textiles as well as painted by masters and starving artist alike? Well then, It really is a case of NOW or next year. Willamette Valley temperatures can change overnight from the mid 40’s to the mid 80’s at this time of year and then the Peony waits for no one. Not for you nor I, prince nor pauper, and never but never for bride or bridezilla.

You should be so lucky as to view these farms… vast acreages of nicely aged, enormously sized Peony “bushes”, rank after rank of stately rows undulating within and over a landscape left by the Willamette river ( that still inundates on rare and expensive occasion  ) A Peony plant left to its own devices throws up multiple stalks, each containing numerous buds. We walk (wade through) those ranks of buds in their multiple millions and remove all but the  terminal one while still tiny. This terminal bud grows fat and plump and and very vigorous as one can imagine… it is now feasting on nutrients once bound for a score of others.

On a good May day, with a sky of Oregon blue and the large puffy white clouds making a back drop to Cottonwoods trees, fluttering freshly minted leaves that stir on the merest hint of breeze… it is as if a million drum sticks held high, slowly take on color as the same breeze sways them rhythmically, hypnotically in near endless rank. A few ooze a sweet stickiness, a siren call to hastening ants, others sprout a solitary bright petal from a still tight green sheath ( as a hatchling bird frees itself from the egg ) and slowly but ever so surely they feel to our enquiring and knowledgeable squeeze, much like marshmallows… like Somoas. You have heard of Somoas, right? Well if the temps keep climbing (especially the night time temps) as they invariably do in May and early June, there are going to be days when we pick a heck of a lot more than just ‘Somoa’ of these Peonies.

SO we shall pick and you shall buy. That’s the deal for the next three weeks and should you plan your wedding or a “must have Peony” party outside of this brief window you can pen all the paean’s you want to the precious Peony and not produce a single, double or even a bomb. A Peony marches very much to the beat of its own drum. Now the Peonies you and I deal with in our transactions at Flowerbud are referred to as herbaceous as they die down to the ground every winter, unlike their tree form brethren and as far as history is concerned they are right in there with the longest used flowers in ornamental culture… some 2500 years and are symbols and emblems in both China and Mongolia. Japanese history notes them as more for medicinal purposes, particularly in the arena of convulsions. Talking of convulsions, I bet the lowly Zinnia had one when the state of Indiana booted it as the state flower in favor of the Peony a little more than fifty years ago. It is deliciously fitting that our fields today are located a short jaunt down a potholed road from Portland as a little research also reveals the Peony to be the common subject of Japanese tattoos and the decrepit masses over the age of thirty may not know (or care) that this pleasant city, once a bastion of forestry, fishing and farming is now the inked flesh capital of the USA. I must say that among the barbed wire bracelets, the Kilroy’s were here, the Maori war paint along with the odd anchor  and M Jagger’s lips, I have yet to see a Peony. I now have an incentive to look harder… and soon, before Gen’s X,Y and Z  fall foul of the sun, gravity and years. A ‘pruning’ process begetting wrinkles enough that their Peony tatts morph from tramp stamps to Rorschach ink blots… or worse.

A planted Peony’s preference is to remain that way and the only way to get premium flowers is from plants established a bare minimum of four years. These rows we wade through rain or shine during harvest season are waist high and better, and on a rainy day in the valley when even Ospreys cling tight to the nest, one slips and slides from cold bath to cold shower, stooping to slip a razor sharp knife low down and through a stem that gets quite woody… as the mud slicks your boots and the water pours down your collar and up your sleeves. We generally liberate a mature plant for 2/3 rds of its stems every year and it can go on like this for years providing the root is happy enough planted shallowly in its mucky soil, doesn’t get over fed, over watered or over seen once flower harvest is complete. Pampering a Peony proves pointless! A mature peony plant that is going to be used for propagation to further the species, enlarge your acreage or be sold into the garden trade can be so tenacious of its location it can take a back hoe to pry it free and then to carve the root mass into plantable pieces containing from three to five “eyes” can take a young man with an axe and loppers to get it down to the pruning shears and knife stage. Its a chore, and goes far in explaining the cost of a peony which at twice the price would still be cheap.

A beautiful gift, a treasure of nature and good husbandry, as a bunch of drumsticks turn into a bowl of beauty. For you for anyone and everyone, delivered almost anywhere in the USA tomorrow for $86 all in. Impossible in China 2500 years ago. Not possible in the USA 25 years ago! Possible today from Flowerbud.com

Bombs Away!