Paeonia 'Claire de Lune'

Paeonia 'Claire de Lune': Moonlight-Pale Yellow in Simple Single Cups

'Claire de Lune' is soft, pale and dreamy, like the song your piano teacher played to make you feel bad about practising. Single, crinkled creamy yellow petals around a golden centre. CLASSY WITHOUT EVEN TRYING.

Plant Characteristics:

• Botanical Name: Paeonia hybrid (P. lactiflora × P. mlokosewitschii) 'Claire de Lune'
• Common Name: Garden Peony, Hybrid Peony
• Height: 70–90 cm (28–35 in)
• Spread: 90 cm (35 in)
• Flowers: Large, single and cup-shaped, pale creamy yellow with crinkled petals and a golden centre
• Bloom Time: Late spring to early summer (May to June), among the earliest
• Foliage: Green and divided, flushed pink when it first emerges
• Features: Early bloom, rare soft yellow colour

Where to Plant: Its airy single flowers suit cottage gardens, pollinator beds and naturalistic plantings as much as formal borders. Plant it where morning light comes through the petals. It blooms early, filling the gap between spring bulbs and the main peony season.

Companion Plants: Plant pale yellow 'Claire de Lune' in a sunny or part-shade bed with wine spiderwort, apricot daylilies and New England asters. Tradescantia 'Red Grape' adds wine-red spiderwort at 35 to 45 cm from June to August. Hemerocallis 'Awesome Blossom' brings rose to apricot daylilies at 60 cm from July to September. Symphyotrichum novae-angliae adds purple New England asters at 90 to 180 cm in August and September. Miscanthus 'Silberfeder' rises behind at 180 to 225 cm with silvery plumes.

Plant Care: Plant it in full sun for the most flowers. Part sun works, with fewer blooms. Give it fertile, well-drained soil with some compost mixed in. Set the crown so the pink buds, called eyes, sit no more than 5 cm (2 in) below the soil surface. Planted deeper, peonies tend to sulk and skip blooming. Water regularly through the first season, then only during long dry spells. Single flowers are light, so it rarely needs staking. Ants on the buds are normal and do no harm. In fall, cut the stems to the ground and clear away the leaves to reduce diseases such as botrytis. Peonies dislike being moved. If you must divide, do it in early fall, keeping three to five eyes per piece.

History: 'Claire de Lune' was raised by White and introduced through Wild and Son in 1954, from a cross of the pink double 'Monsieur Jules Elie' and the yellow-flowered Caucasus species Paeonia mlokosewitschii. It is said to be the only successful cross ever made between the two.

Final Thoughts: Rare colour, early bloom, and deer leave it alone. Plant one where you have your morning coffee. PURE MOONLIGHT, NO NIGHT SHIFT.