After Years of Waiting, the Majorcan Peony Finally Blooms
They say patience is the art of hoping, and even if we aren’t very disciplined in the former, we here at Annie’s are experts at the latter. Such is the case with our very FIRST seed grown crop of this unspeakably gorgeous creature!
Drumroll please … Paeonia cambessedesii!
Our adventure began in 1998, when Paeonia cambessedesii was only a twinkle in Annie’s eye. She was on the hunt for a Peony we could grow here in our mild Mediterranean climate – one that needed no Winter chill. To her delight, she found what she was looking for in an English seed catalog and promptly sent off for a small packet of seed.
You are getting very sleeeeepy …
From that first handful of seed, we were able to grow perhaps three or four plants just for fun, one of which resided in a container at propagator Anni Jensen’s home in Richmond, the others in containers at Annie’s former Richmond nursery. It took five more years before those plants set seed and when they did, we didn’t let a single seed roll away.
Paeonia cambessedesii wearing its seed-collecting support hose. (We see you little seed nestled in the foliage. You can’t hide from us.)
Our pioneering plants thrived in regular, well-drained soil with average to low water and didn’t mind an occasional top-dressing of compost. They went dormant in Summer and faithfully returned – bigger and better – each January.
A flame red bud emerges in February.
Each February, as the seed-mother plants at the former Richmond nursery came into their full and bloomiferous glory, anyone who wandered close enough to see their mesmerizing deep rose blooms and smell their hypnotic cinnamon-allspice fragrance wanted this plant. Ahem, NEEDED this plant. In fact, if we had a dollar for every time we chirped “Put it on a WISH LIST,” we could probably afford to fly to the Balearic Islands to see this endangered beauty in the wild for ourselves.
At the time, Annie’s had finally produced enough of these heart-rattling beauties to share, and the limited crop sold out.
The original update invited readers to join a wish list for a hoped-for February 2014 crop. Those stock and timing details are historical; use current online records for availability.
