FURTHER ADVENTURES OF MOLLY THE WITCH
Three years ago I bought a wonderful species peony with an unpronounceable Latin name: Paeonia daurica ssp mlokosevitschii. Known to its friends as “Molly the Witch,” this peony is native to the Caucasus Mountains and features delectable poppy-like flowers the color of spring sunlight. Fat clusters of golden stamens also shine out from the center of each cup-shaped bloom. The unusual rounded leaves are gray-green, a departure from the dark green, deeply dissected foliage typical of most tree and herbaceous peonies.
I fall unabashedly in love with a different plant roughly three of four times each growing season. Molly, with its combination of stunning beauty and relative rarity, was irresistible. After seeing the plant in a magazine spread, I searched the catalogs and websites, located a source and got my Molly. When my peony arrived several weeks later, I found the perfect space for it–a sunny raised bed at the foot City of York, a white climbing rose that was the object of an intense infatuation nearly ten years ago. The drainage was perfect, which I thought would be congenial to a peony descended from mountain-dwelling ancestors. The sun was sufficient for optimum rose production, so I decided it would also be perfect for Molly. I planted my new peony at the appropriate depth and waited.
Then life intervened. By the following spring, other plant passions had superseded my ardor for Molly. The peony survived the first winter, but didn’t show spectacular growth in the spring. I didn’t worry because mlokosevitshii’s are reputedly slow growers. By contrast, City of York continued to expand its reach, escaping from its trellis and reaching out to capture the garage windows on either side. The floral display was marvelous, but pruning the thorny plant was as painful as rubbing salt in an open wound. As I disinfected the injuries inflicted on me by City of York during the annual pruning, I thought about how nice it would be to contemplate Molly’s exquisite blooms without having to pay for them in blood.
Last spring the Molly the Witch story took a dramatic turn when high winds brought down City of York’s trellis, flattening everything that grew anywhere near it, including Molly. I shed even more blood removing the rose from the trellis and cutting the obstreperous canes back to eighteen inches. I had a vague idea about moving City of York to a better location by my big garden arch and replacing it in the raised bed with the well-mannered Madame Pierre Oger, which would be more suited to the trellis than the arch.
Like many vague ideas, the City of York-Madame Pierre Oger swap never materialized. Winter came and went. City of York took the severe pruning as a sign of affection and sprouted a bountiful crop of young, vigorous canes. By the time I began paying attention to the rose a few weeks ago, it was reaching out in all directions in defiance of the fact that it was no longer tethered to a trellis. I put the trellis back up, shedding more blood in the process. When I finally finished I noticed poor Molly the Witch, her pretty leaves were attempting to make headway after months of being covered by aggressive rose canes. Molly was only a little bigger than it was the day I took it out of the nursery carton, but at least the plant was alive.
Clearly it was time to decide what to do with Molly. The peony is, of course, in peril of being crushed a second time if the trellis topples again and severe spring windstorms are hardly a rarity in this part of the world. While the mature plant might look attractive next to City of York, the rose probably shades the peony too much and gobbles up the lion’s share of water and nutrients. Molly is a survivor and deserves better. Like other peonies, it will probably object to being moved and sulk for a year or two before doing much additional growing. But enduring the sulks is preferable to never seeing a blossom, so later this week, Molly is going to a new home in the upper back garden. Other peonies flourish there and I am betting that my little mlokosewitschii will eventually decide that it has reached the promised land and reward me with new growth. When the plant finally flowers, I will probably fall in love all over again, convinced that the glorious outcome was worth the long wait.
I ordered my Molly the Witch from an excellent nursery which, like many excellent nurseries, is now closed. I have found only one American vendor that carries the species and that vendor’s plants are considerably more expensive than the one that I bought. They are also probably older, which accounts for the difference. If you want your own Paeonia mlokosewitschii, contact A&D Nursery, P.O. Box 2338, Snohomish, WA 98291; (800) 668-9690; wwwadpeonies.com. No printed catalog.