Flamboyant Flowers

There is no getting away from it peonies are flamboyant flowers, they are tall and pink and fabulous and in bloom at Norton Conyers now. We have a rather large problem though, despite their glorious show of colour they are rather marred by the mass of accompanying weeds, the thistles match them in height, the goose grass smothers them and the bindweed wraps them up in tortuous coils. We have a plan however, although one that will not be accomplished very quickly or easily, we are going to move the entire border to the opposite yew hedge, washing the roots to remove any trace of weed before replanting them in their new home. So today Alyson and I began the grand labour by marking out the different colours by tying ribbons to the stems and inserting labels as well as mapping exactly where they were in the border in order that we may save the best examples, we counted ten different varieties but the only ones we could name with any certainty were Bowl of Beauty and Shirley Temple.
Peonies don't like being moved so we shall have to wait a few years for the new border to establish before we remove the old one and grass it over. It is a lot of work but we are adamant that the weeds will not win!

"A rose is a rose, but a peony is a friend forever"
Anon