This post is for f2tY's Japanese Dad:) Happy Father's day, a little early. Oh, and given the symbolism of peonies (they sometimes evidently have feminine connotations in Asian iconography), Happy Mother's day to f2’s Japanese Mom, a little late.

Nishiki Tree Peony. Olympus E620, lensbaby ‘sweet 35’

Actually, I suspect this is a shima-nishiki tree peony: the name means ‘fire-flame’, and (presumably) refers to the striping. My nishiki is almostly certainly grafted (a fact I discovered via this helpful website, which doesn't have any striped peonies, but does have a ton of info about them, beautifully illustrated with nice photography^[1] .

The reason I know this is that some branches have only the plain red flowers, which originally I'd assumed were the plant just reverting to type. —I intend to cut those off this year.

closeup

Last year a neighbor gave me a whole bunch of plants. I wasn't able to figure out homes for all of them, but I was particularly excited about the wild ginger, a native ground cover; and it came in like gangbusters this spring (unlike, alas, the huge joe pye weed I rescued, and seemed to be doing great, or my scarlet bee balm, or my oakleaf hydrangea^[2] ...sigh.)

Wild ginger. I had to pull the leaves away to expose the flowers at the base of the plant.

07jun22: added peony, lensbaby tags

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