November "Singing in the Rain"

The botanical art print of Peony (Paeonia) “Singing in the Rain” painting is here! As part of our “Peony of the Month” project, in addition to peony art, we also we discuss garden design and floral arrangement!

November weather can be a little bit depressing. Days are getting shorter and darker, tree leaves are falling from the grounds, it’s raining a lot… What to do? Well, we recommend… “Singing in the Rain”! 

The fabulous peony with such an inspiring and uplifting name is precisely our choice for this month’s Peony of the Month! Let’s get to know her a bit better, shall we? 

Join us in the "Peony of the Month Chat Show" to find out more about this unique and interesting flower!

The origin

“Singing in the Rain” is another one of the intersectional peonies featured in our project. The first one was “Hillary Itoh”, which we showcased in January (wow, it’s already been ten months since we started our journey of discovering new peonies!!)

Intersectional, or Itoh peonies, were named after Professor Toichi Itoh. He was the one who started to create hybrid peonies - a cross between tree and herbaceous - and this work to create new exciting and more robust varieties continues to this day. Intersectional peonies combine the best qualities of tree and herbaceous peonies - big, stunning blossoms and attractive foliage. 

Apparently, the parents of “Singing in the Rain” are tree peony “Golden Era” and herbaceous peony “Martha W.”. Looking closer at this beautiful peony, you might also see some shared traits with our previous stars of the project! For instance:

• She looks a little bit like a rose, sharing this characteristic with our February “Lovely Rose”.
• Her petals are flush, delicate salmon-like pink; this colour is similar to our January “Hillary Itoh” in the later blossoming stage. 
• The centre is yellow and attractive, similar to “Garden Treasure” (however, as we mentioned in our latest article, the seeds it contains are not fertile).

The name

You might wonder what the reason behind this peony’s name is. Well, apart from the fact that it is pretty enough to make us want to sing in the rain… It seems that contrary to most flowers, she is unaffected by heavy rainfall. 

Usually, heavy rain is not good news for any garden. It is dangerous to the roots and can cause your peony blossoms to break and splatter their petals. “Singing in the Rain” is one of these rare peonies that are not afraid of the pouring rain! 

“Singing in the Rain” in your Garden

“Singing in the Rain” is a hybrid peony growing up to 90 cm tall. She flowers in late spring/early summer and is extremely ‘floriferous’ (producing many flowers), with 2-3 side flower buds growing from each stem. What’s great is that these buds often open in sequence - meaning that you can enjoy her blossoms for around two weeks (even four in some areas!). 

The buds are pink, but they flush with yellow during blooming and become slightly orange with coral-salmon hues when fully open. From afar, the blooming heads look orange. The foliage is also quite beautiful with rich, deep green colour that will look attractive even after the flowering season, well into autumn.

Peonies that have colour-changing petals offer many possibilities for garden design! There are plenty of colour combinations to create with “Singing in the Rain” that would make your garden look absolutely stunning, and our recommendation is simply one of them - but we hope you like it as much as we do!

“Singing in the Rain” has a very high ornamental value and is regarded as a superior landscape variety by those who grow peonies. As mentioned before, her petals change colours from pink through orange to salmon-yellow. All of those are warm, soft hues that will be interesting to pair with a stronger, albeit smaller, accent. Hence, our first suggestion for perennials to plant in your peony garden is a carnation Dianthus 'Passion' flowering from May to October.

Scattered around “Singing in the Rain”, these tiny dark-red flowers will create a lovely contrast. Also, they don’t grow very tall - approximately 20 cm - so the spotlight will still be on the peony. 

Our second recommendation is grass Melica uniflora f. albida with juicy, vibrant-green stems. In the early summer, so around the time when “Singing in the Rain” blooms, the grass will have some nodding white flower stems. In addition, this grass doesn’t require much work and will tolerate dry shade.

Dark-pink small flowers and green, combined with the coral-orange of “Singing in the Rain”, will create a combination as uplifting as our peony’s name! Just imagine this beautiful garden in the rain, washed by streaks of water that make the colours more vivid and add a fresh smell on top of the fragrance of flowers… And you’re standing under a big umbrella, surrounded by vibrant fresh green with red-pink and cream dots, as well as salmon-coral peony heads! Now, isn’t that the vision to look forward to during gloomy, rainy days? 

“Singing in the Rain” botanical art on your wall

As usual, this month, we also present a peony painting created by our artist, Siyuan. This month’s botanical illustration features different plant parts, like peony leaves and the seed pod. It is now available as botanical art in our store in two variants - as signed A3 limited-edition and A4 open-edition peony art prints.