The First Peony - 'Shima-Nishiki'
The Tree Peony 'Shima-Nishiki' is the first to bloom. The name means "fire flame" in Japanese, an apt title to describe the red blooms striped with white. Occasionally, there are solid red blooms. Every year this peony gets better and seemingly overnight, the puny-looking bare branches are suddenly fleshed out with a tremendous profusion of leaves. The bush is dense, forming a 4 ft. mound. Our plant resides at the top of one of the terrace beds in back where it gets some morning sun and dappled sun (mostly shade) for the remainder of the day. We have many peonies in the garden and they all came from Adelman Peony Gardens in Salem, Oregon. It is worth a drive just to see their beautiful display garden in May. Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy
Jack Frost and Mother Nature sure create some beautiful work together!
ReplyDeleteAwesome! One of my favorite shrubs. :)
ReplyDeleteThe colors, leaf patterns, the frost...gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteIt appears that Jack Frost ran his paint brush all around those outer edges. Beautiful!
ReplyDeleteWonderful shot Phillip! And to make it to December 8 is quite an accomplishment. What zone are you in?
ReplyDelete