We had a very long-awaited arrival in our garden at the beginning of May, and she caused great excitement (well, for me! I’m easily pleased).

About eight years ago I came home from my favourite local plant nursery with a small plant of a species paeony, Paeonia daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii. You won’t be surprised that its name is such a mouthful that it has a nickname: Molly the Witch. Much easier to say (unless you speak Polish – its discoverer was the Polish botanist, Ludwik Mlokosiewicz). I’d seen photos of this paeony in gardening magazines and slavered and added it to my wish list. It has the most beautiful pale lemon yellow blossoms, and is among the earliest of all the paeonies to come into flower.

So I waited for the flowers. And waited. And waited. It probably didn’t help that I had the plant in a smallish pot, so after a few years I potted her up. And waited. And waited. And then, this spring, in amongst the beautiful deep red leaf spikes, I saw a small bud. Just the one, but that was more than enough! I watched it like a hawk as the bud fattened and grew.

On May Day (1 May) she looked like this, full of promise:

Molly the Witch in bud (Paeonia daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii).

and she stayed tantalisingly closed like that for a couple of days. On 3 May she finally opened:

Molly open

I am so happy! She has finished flowering now, but I am hopeful that if I feed her and cosset her, next year I might get more. Fingers crossed.

As The Mead Nursery says about her: definitely worth the wait!