Ann Arbor is a city with a lot of identities. It’s known for football (home of the University of Michigan), weed (it’s treated cannabis possession as a civil infraction since the ‘70s and hosts an annual Hash Bash), and fairy doors (you’ll find them in and around restaurants, residences, government and school buildings, and more). Ann Arbor, I learned my first spring in town, is also a peony city. The University’s arboretum hosts the W.E. Upjohn Peony Garden, which grows nearly 800 peony varieties with over 10,000 flowers at peak bloom in early June.
When I first visited my then-potential backyard in late June, I saw the unmistakable post-bloom claws of spent peonies lined up across the foundation. The next eleven months passed wondering what color(s) they might be, the number and depth of their petals, and whether they’d return at all. I learned that established peonies can survive for decades with very little care. This explained the robust colony of flowers amid an otherwise overgrown garden. A returning gift to the woman who planted them, heavens know how long ago.
I did nothing but observe the peonies during my first year. I watched the scarlet asparagus shoots break through in mid-winter. I watched them leaf out in grotesque fingers, finally morphing into proper leaves. I watched unmistakable buds swell in the dozens.
The third or fifth time I noticed ants on the buds, I recognized the pattern. I was relieved to learn that ants treat peony buds like everlasting gobstoppers and do the flowers no harm. Finally, I watched each bud reveal itself as a thousand bold magenta peonies.
Every flower was exactly the same, and they were all perfect. They even smelled good. My partner and I rejoiced at our good fortune.
The next season, I pruned the dead stems back and gave the buried tubers a layer of mulch. They bloomed again as brightly. By our second season of peonies, we were planning our wedding for the next year. Early June, in fact. Dare we entrust our wedding’s flowers to our homegrown peony crop? We dared.
I researched how to ensure a healthy peony season, and there was very little for me to do. I deadheaded spent blooms, encouraging the flowers to send the rest of the season’s energy to the tubers—saving that energy for the next year’s blooms. I cut down the dead stalks in the fall and added compost. I went so far as to buy specialty fertilizer, but I never added it. I had no good reason to mess with a sure thing.
In a perfect world, the peonies would bloom two days before the ceremony. In 2024, an early spring moved everything’s bloom cycle up three weeks. We watched for the buds to grow and nearly open; we squeezed the buds, feeling for a marshmallow bounce.
At that point, we’d snip a length of stem, harvesting in batches each day. Underdeveloped side buds were mostly snipped off, some left for texture. Then we rolled out a length of paper towels (or junk mail newspaper), laid out the flowers with off-setting buds (so they didn’t bunch up), and rolled them all together. We’d tie the embryonic bouquet in a plastic bag and find a place for it in the refrigerator.
Three days before the ceremony, we disassembled each bag and put the flowers in water. We had real and makeshift vases of peonies covering our stovetop and kitchen table for days, and they were glorious.
Incredibly, our scheme paid off. We had peonies on every table. My mom made my bouquet of peonies. They were a remarkable reminder of both the work we put into the wedding and the work our friends and family put into the wedding– plus my garden predecessor Betty taking care of us.
Betty had one more surprise in store. In another area of the backyard, where buckthorn, amur honeysuckle, and English ivy had run wild, a new sprout appeared. I had cleared out the invasives, so this plant had the sun, space, and moisture it needed to grow. It was a peony, pink and light and unlike the wedding flowers. With a single bloom it reclaimed its life and returned to sleep for another year.
A desired result of removing invasive plants is native plants popping up in their place, and peonies are far from native. Nevertheless, a flower slept in darkness for years untold, only to reveal itself on the eve of my wedding, and that is pure magic.
Put It In Your Hat 