Peony season has started… paused… and started again! The erratic weather plays havoc with what we lovingly call marshmallows. If you grow or buy British peonies, you'll know exactly what we mean.
What are you on about, Helen? Let me explain.
The Growers Behind Our British Peonies
At Evolve, we have not one, but five British peony growers in our black book. Some we’ve known longer than Evolve itself; we’ve been cutting from their fields for well over a decade, while others are more recent additions to the fold. Their farms stretch across the rich growing counties of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, where generations of experience in growing British flowers meet the unpredictability of the British weather.v
We won’t disclose exactly who they are. Not because we’re being secretive for the sake of it, but because peonies are divas. Beautiful, glamorous, breathtaking divas… but divas nonetheless. Growing them is stressful enough without every man and his dog trying to buy direct.
Why Peony Season Is Never Quite the Same Twice
Peony season moves fast, and almost all of these peonies are sold before the crop is even harvested. Long-standing relationships with buyers mean pre-agreed prices, volumes and delivery schedules are already in place. Experienced growers can normally predict to the day when a variety will be ready to cut. Yet even the experts are now jostling with weather patterns that seem more unpredictable every year.
What British Weather Really Does to Peonies
An April shower? Surprisingly helpful. Rain washes the sticky nectar from the buds and helps reduce ant infestations. Those ants aren’t harming the peonies, by the way; they’re simply attracted to the sugary coating on the buds, but fewer ants definitely make life easier for everyone involved further down the chain.
Hailstorms in spring are another story entirely. Damage to the buds can be catastrophic, and the true impact often doesn’t reveal itself until weeks later when the flower finally opens in the vase. Frost behaves much the same way. A tiny injury to a developing bud in the field can quietly travel all the way through the supply chain before suddenly appearing as a distorted or damaged bloom in someone’s home.
Why We Champion British-Grown Flowers
You can’t fight nature. Going against the weather is a pointless exercise. I learnt that during “the scuba diving interlude” — four years spent mostly in the Red Sea taught me to go with the flow, not against the current. Funny really, because Evolve has become one of only a small handful of wholesalers specialising in around 85% British-grown flowers, floating in a sea of traditional wholesalers and importers still selling 95% imported product.
Perhaps that’s why we love British-grown peonies so much. They remind us every single season that flowers are not manufactured products. They are living, breathing things shaped by rain, sunshine, wind, frost, patience and timing.
And when everything aligns?
Those marshmallow buds unfurl into something utterly magnificent.
