Paeonia lactiflora Chiffon Parfait

The Chiffon Parfait Peony (Paeonia x lactiflora) is a herbaceous or Chinese Peony that offers generous, original, attractive, and highly fragrant flowering. It is a late variety, producing a large number of large double salmon-pink flowers with ruffled petals, forming a dense pompon without stamens. The pastel-coloured flowers, with a sensual fragrance, make this variety truly unusual and quite unique. Dominating intense green foliage, the flowers rise on rigid stems, giving a graceful appearance and offering a beautiful display of flowers to cut for bouquets. Easy to grow in all regions, Chinese Peonies thrive in loose and rather moist soil, in full sun. Robust and faithful, they sometimes take a little time to establish, but they develop year after year and can live for over 50 years.

Chinese herbaceous peonies are mainly derived from Paeonia lactiflora, a perennial herbaceous plant native to Central and Eastern Asia (from eastern Tibet, northern China, to eastern Siberia), where it naturally grows in woods and meadows. This plant belongs to the family of Ranunculaceae or Paeoniaceae. The herbaceous Peonies, perennial by virtue of their roots, form a clump of foliage that completely disappears in winter.

The Chiffon Parfait Chinese Peony forms a herbaceous and bushy clump from spring onwards, moderately dense, reaching 90 cm (35in) in all directions. Its large double flowers, 16 to 18 cm (6 to 7in) in diameter, appear rather late, in June, depending on the climate, and last for about three weeks. They bloom at the end of the stems but also on some secondary buds. They emerge as a large pale pink bud and then open into a large, double and dense pompom, salmon-pink with ruffled petals, without stamens. The vegetation of this variety is good and it has remarkable longevity. The young foliage, purple and shiny, unfolds into large dark green, deeply cut leaves. They are carried on a petiole that divides into 3, with lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate segments. The leaflets are entire or sometimes lobed. The vegetation disappears in winter, while the buds persist at ground level and will develop again in spring. This long-lived perennial plant grows from a large fleshy root that does not appreciate being moved.

Peonies are among those plants that form the foundations of a garden. The Chiffon Parfait Chinese Peony can be planted in borders and alongside pathways, combined with timeless and unpretentious perennials such as dark blue Irises, columbines, bellflowers, perennial geraniums, carnations, or Christmas roses. It can also be grown in the vegetable garden to supply cut flowers for the house. Cultivating it in a pot is not recommended, as its needs will not be met. Over time, the peony becomes majestic and blooms more abundantly, producing up to 60 flowers. By combining different varieties with staggered flowering times, it is possible to have flowers for 6 weeks from spring to early summer.