3-2-1, cue month of online fawning over peonies. I always want to boycott. I cast no aspersions on preferences – peonies just seem too blowsy, too easy for me and my somewhat astringent tastes.
Ah, give me dogwood any day. Give me flowers that appear to float on water. Give me random numbers made chlorophyll. Never mind the fanciful images. Give me serenity.
I love them at a distance, the way blooms wander down a tree.
I love them close up, like pre-teens after school, forming and reforming in groups. Does Lolly love Louis today? Yes. But maybe not tomorrow. Again with the fanciful imagery – we will blame something about the patterns, we know not what.
Growing under trees as dogwoods will, in dappled light. All together,
or on their own.
The single flower keeps the promise of the tree.
Should you love the peony best, let’s still be friends. Perhaps we’ll bond again come winter over holly berries.
35 Responses
Ah, beautiful delicate dogwood! I wish I could grow it too (too windy over here), so I have to resort to buying branches of it at the SF flower market. I do hope you get to bring some inside to enjoy also. Just a few branches look so dramatic.
@Chronica Domus, I hadn’t thought of it, but I bet it would look amazing.
Love dogwoods, and your photographs are lovely!
Roses, peonies with many petals do not stress me out….I actually like the way they look like colourful snow under the plants but I didn’t always embrace a little chaos in the garden.
@Bungalow Hostess, Thank you. Funny, I’m sure I would love peonies in the garden, as I do my roses. I just get cranky over all the photos – which often denude peonies of their real life decay and fray.
Love this! I’m always drawn to magical bits of white in a garden. The flowering dogwood is a “species at risk” here. They do grow in our Carolinian forests (we live on the edge of one so I have seen them in the wild). So pretty!
@DaniBP, “Magical bits of white,” exactly. How fun to see them in the wild.
I’ll confess: I love peonies. But I also love the serene simplicity of these too.
@déjà pseu, A woman with an open mind:).
Dogwoods are lovely. Can I like both?
@Leslie, Yes:). I am partly tongue-in-cheek. And in real life, I am sure peonies are beautiful, but since I can’t grow them, I grumble about the online onslaught.
I love peonies partially because their beauty is so fleeting in my garden (they were the first plants I bought when we built our house). But as I’ve grown (about to say “aged”, which is also true…) I’ve added many more things to the garden for structure, for support, for more of a quiet & serene beauty. Our house is surrounded by woods (in NC) and we have dogwood & redbud – April is glorious! I’ve learned to plant for different seasons and different times of year, to plant for my nose and my eyes – every garden I see teaches me something else, something I want to implement at home. (but every year, my first focus is always the vegetable garden – but we integrate edibles into the “ornamental” gardens too….I do love your gardening posts!
@Kelly, Ah, sounds like you are an accomplished gardener in beautiful surroundings. I’m so please you like these posts – I enjoy them very much.
I love my peonies. I have white ones and pink ones. They are fleeting. So beautiful while they are here. Kind of like my white lilacs. First the bulbs , then the lilacs, now the peonies. I really enjoyed your dogwood photos. I’m open-minded about flowers. I like them all.
@Mary anne, Here’s to an open mind! And I imagine if I could grow peonies, and therefore see them in their full life cycle vs. all gussied up on the screen, I’d like them too:).
Oh my, I just found your blog, you are so funny!! You also remind me so much of my mother, she is a Deep South Catholic but she seems to be quite waspy. We were never allowed to say “shut up”, cursing is not a sin but is considered a lack of an adequate vocabulary, the worst thing she can say about anyone is to whisper “white trash”. If the subject is not white, they are just “trashy”. Now that we are older (older than you) she doesn’t correct us, she gives us looks. There is a look for improper grammar, a look for slouching, etc. We love to tease her, my brother especially. She will shake her head and say “all these years, I have been nursing vipers to my bosom.” When the style of tank tops and visible bra straps first reared it’s ugly head, she called me and said she had seen 3 sets of brassiere straps in one day that weren’t hers, she thought it was time to write up a Do Not Resuscitate order for her chart at the doctor’s office. And she loves when the dogwoods are blooming, we have to go for drives and see them all and I pray for no pink ones to mar the experience.
So, I could go on for quite a while here, but I won’t. I look forward to reading your blog and seeing your minimally posed outfit ideas.
@nancy, Your mother sounds like a true Grande Dame – with a special Southern twang. Made me laugh, that pink dogwoods might ruin the experience, but I kind of agree:).
I don’t feel any compulsion to choose, and don’t have either in my garden right now. Really miss the beautiful dogwood that grew wild on the edge of our last yard, so I especially appreciate your photos and words. But remind me, do dogwood flowers have fragrance? I don’t remember it if they do. Peonies, now….
@Frances/Materfamilias, I don’t know about the fragrance, mine are centered in beds so I’d have to stomp some perennials to smell them! And if I was not clear enough that I was talking somewhat tongue-in-cheek, my apologies.
Oh, I got the tongue-in-cheek. Apologies are mine if I didn’t make that clear. I know you’re not the type to get all didactic and absolutist about flower preferences. ;-)
:). Always tricky, sorting out intonation in text on a page. Thanks.
Love your dogwood! Our dogwood tree, after over 30 some years of glorious blooms, is struggling this year. To compensate, the native mountain laurel growing wild behind our house is in full bloom. And yes, I love peonies and envy my neighbors’ abundant blooms, while my bush has yielded just 2 flowers!
@Jane, Ah, mountain laurel has such BEAUTIFUL flowers!
Neither can be grown here in Western Australia. Thank you for the stunning photos
@Mary, You are very welcome. Thank you for the kind words.
Cannot grow either in this Old Testament Garden, but admire them both x
@Faux Fuchsia, Can you all grow succulents?
So graceful! But I like peonies too :-)
@K-Line, Still friends;).
I was just in Connecticut and there were dogwood trees blooming everywhere, so beautiful. I didn’t know there were dogwood bushes? I assume that’s what you’re talking about – I’ll have to look it up and see if it grows here.
@kathy, These are trees, just young ones. They’ve been in the ground for about 7 years? Maybe 5?
I grew up in Connecticut and I loved seeing the white clouds of dogwood flowers, seemingly floating in the middle layer of the temperate spring forest. Long live dogwood!
@Sadie, Floating in the middle layer of the temperate spring forest! Thank you for the term, I think that’s what I’m approximating in my California back yard, except, I can only do it in one small area which I have committed to watering, around the very small lawn. In the drought, I’m saving the dogwood and hydrangea, the lawn is left to wither:(.
It was like you were singing to me – thank you!
Thank you for the beautiful photographs, the appreciation of nature, and the charming way in which you extol your love in prose.
<3
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