2016 Southern Peony Grandma's Peonies

This past Friday I went to visit my Grandma and see her flower garden. She is the reason I wanted to grow peonies. My Grandma always has always had the best and biggest flower garden of anyone in our family, and I loved helping her in her flowers when I was a child. She likes to tell everyone the story of how I would stay outside deadheading flowers in her garden for her, long after she and my cousin had grown tired and gone inside. We took this photo in her garden on Friday. These two white peonies are some divisions from one of the original peony bushes she had in her garden when I was young. Back then Grandma's peony bushes seemed to be 4 or 5 feet tall, and the flowers were huge and smelled so good! Either I had quite the imagination or I was just much smaller and the perspective made them seem like giants! I'm guessing these "giant" double peonies are Peony 'Festiva Maxima' since they are fragrant, large, white double peonies with a few specks of red in the center. I love my grandmother very much and I feel very grateful to her for giving me the love of gardening, flowers, and especially peonies!

My Grandma and Me with her White Double Peonies