June 24, 2026

Clara Parkes

Jun 24, 2026

Good morning!

It’s Wednesday—and, oh dear, I appear to have offended someone else in the garden. In the interest of fairness, and also because their rather spectacular buds just opened, I’d like to introduce (or reintroduce) you to these Itoh peonies.

They reside in the upper garden behind the house. I assumed they had little to do with their herbaceous cousins out front, but now I’m beginning to suspect that the birds ferry gossip back and forth between families.

This hybrid Frankenpeony is named after Japanese horticulturist Dr. Toichi Itoh, who, after some 20,000 attempts, successfully crossed a herbaceous peony with a tree peony. He dreamed of creating a plant that grew big blousy herbaceous-style blooms but on sturdy, tree-like stems that didn’t require staking.

While Itoh shuffled off this mortal coil before ever seeing his creation bloom, his legacy lives on in humble gardens around the world—including our own.

“Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they please.”
― Pythagoras

Onwards,

Clara

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A brief moment of thoughtfulness before you step into your day, written by bestselling author Clara Parkes.