Paeonia 'SHIRLEY TEMPLE'

Shirley Temple (1928-2014) was an American actress and diplomat of great importance to former Czechoslovakia because in the years 1989-1992 she was a US ambassador here. Her name was chosen for a beautiful variety of perennial peony which boasts fully double, white flowers with an occasional purple vein. It is a cross between Festiva Maxima and Mme Edouard Doriat. The flowers are up to 20 cm across, fragrant, and bloom from late May atop 60-80 cm tall, strong stems that do not need staking. Deciduous leaves are rather thick, deep green, glossy, and palmately divided.

These peonies are great plants not only for perennial beds and borders, they also look very elegant combined with shrubs and trees where they soften their woody structures. They also make beautiful cut flowers, though, they never last more than a week. They are one of the easiest perennials to grow – just make sure you don’t put their rhizomes too deep. Then you'll have no trouble whatsoever - they can take almost any kind of weather caprice and full neglect. Peonies are long-lived plants, there can be found some 100 years old specimens in royal gardens and arboretums.

Peonies need fertile, well-drained, preferably moist soil. If you want to be generous to them water them freely on hot and dry days, and feed them annually after they roll up foliage completely. This way you can enhance their vigour, and plants will keep their flowers longer and look healthier. Still, this extra care is not required, once established they will grow without help. They don’t like transplanting. If you need to reduce the clump size, remove the unwanted part leaving the rest of the rhizomes in soil, untouched. Fully hardy to about -34 °C (USDA zone 4), many even down to -40 °C (USDA zone 3).

Last update 03-06-2024