The Mystery Of The Peonies

When we moved to our house eight years ago, I found several peony bushes planted by the shady west wall.  They bloomed abundantly in the spring, but their huge pink flowers had no smell:

I couldn't believe that someone would plant scent-free peonies, but took consolation in the fact that they were also ant-free.

A few years later I made a flower bed by the stone wall in front of the house, and needed big plants that would look good all season long, even when they weren't blooming.  I like the looks of a peony bush, flowers or no flowers, so I walked around to the shady spot where the pink peonies lived and transplanted six or seven of them to the new bed.

The bushes rooted well, died down to the ground in the winter, and sprang to life the next spring.  Soon they were covered in buds, but when the flowers opened one sunny morning, they were almost pure white...and they gave off clouds of that unmistakable, that divine, peony smell.

Every year since then the peonies have put on their show:  pink and unscented and ant-free on the shady west side, white and perfumed and beloved of ants in the sunny spot.

How can this be?  I can imagine that a change in soil composition might cause the change in color, as hydrangea aficionados know.  And perhaps the sun exposure has something to do with it.  But the truly miraculous part, the scent that would cause me to plant peonies even if they looked like crab grass, remains a mystery.

If any of you botanists, peony-loving gardeners, or lyric poets out there have a theory, I'd like to hear from you.

The Patio

I am proud that, over the years, I have, by means of newspaper, black plastic, and several tons of mulch, minimized or even eliminated the lawns in the houses we have owned. Lawns, like corsets and high heels, are crimes against Nature. They consume energy and water, choke out native species, and compel otherwise rational people to use noxious chemicals. There should be a law.

Our present house, unfortunately, is surrounded by a large lawn. I have made inroads against it in the form of the vegetable garden and a couple of flower beds, but I will never be able to eliminate it altogether. Now, however, an opportunity to take a large bite out of the lawn has presented itself.

The lawn comes right up to the back of the house, and in that space we have plunked an iron table and some chairs, and the bird feeder. But the ground in Vermont stays wet for such a large part of the year, that we hardly ever sit out there. I had long resisted putting in a patio because I thought it would look suburban--bear in mind that the area where the patio would go is bordered by the back of the chicken house. This year's mud season went on for so long, however, that I finally decided that we needed some terra firma on which to enjoy the first rays of the spring sun; watch the stars on summer nights; and toast marshmallows around the fire pit in early fall.

So we're going to make a patio--a slate patio, this being West Pawlet. And in it there will be a small round or rectangular pond. And that, I'm afraid, after weeks of thinking and drawing, is as far as I have gotten.

I have a pile of garden and pond books that friends have lent me. And it may well be that these books are what is holding me back. The pictures in them are so gorgeous, so paradisal that they have given me a severe case of gardener's block. Those cunning nooks and charming vistas, those benches and arches and paths, those filigreed beds--what have they to do with my bare little patch with its two infant apple trees?

Where do I begin? I know that what defines a garden is a sense of enclosure, and that the patio and pond will have to relate somehow to the square vegetable garden, the pair of apple trees (which, as I write, are covered in bloom--bless their hearts), the chicken shed. I know that the project must not cost zillions of dollars. And I know that whatever I end up with, I will have to maintain.

So, my parameters are: simple, cheap, and aesthetically pleasing. Is it any wonder I'm stuck?