From: ciaodomenica It's June and we are in garden season. Who better to advise us than Vita Sackville-West? I have been collecting articles and books filled with her gardening advice for years. For anyone who loves a garden, her voice is as comforting and helpful as any gardening friend could be. Here she is talking about peonies in June, 1952:
"Often one is asked for plants which will flourish in semi-shade, and in the month of June the noble peony comes to mind. It always seems to me that the herbaceous peony is the very epitome of June. Larger than any rose, it has something of the cabbage rose's voluminous quality; and when it finally drops from the vase, it sheds its vast petticoats with a bump on the table, all in an intact heap, much as a rose will suddenly fall, making us look up from our book or conversation, to notice for one moment the death of what had still appeared to be a living beauty...
"Often one is asked for plants which will flourish in semi-shade, and in the month of June the noble peony comes to mind. It always seems to me that the herbaceous peony is the very epitome of June. Larger than any rose, it has something of the cabbage rose's voluminous quality; and when it finally drops from the vase, it sheds its vast petticoats with a bump on the table, all in an intact heap, much as a rose will suddenly fall, making us look up from our book or conversation, to notice for one moment the death of what had still appeared to be a living beauty...
The secret of growing herbaceous peonies is to plant them very shallow and give them a deep, rich root-run of manure for their roots to find as they go down in search of nourishment. Then they will go ahead, and probably outlive the person who planted them, so that his or her grandchild will be picking finer flowers fifty years hence."
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