Peony Japan

The Peony Japan produces today dates back to about the 8th. century. Buddhist monks from China traveled to Japan as missionaries and certainly spread the word about this ancient and amazing flower that had so many medicinal and decorative uses. At first, just a few plants were imported and various propagation methods considered.

The Japanese elected to grow new varieties by grafting tree peonies onto herbaceous peony roots, and, with a few exceptions, chose to pursue the single peony appearance for aesthetic reasons. Japanese peonies generally have a simple, clean line and thus appear more graceful. A library or Internet search for Peony Japan will produce images that for the most part are unlike the Chinese tree peony.

Near the Japanese city of Takarazuka, whose peonies were sent to the 1900 World Expo in France, is a large peony garden where horticulturalists have developed rare winter peonies that actually bloom during the winter months. Much new species cultivation continues in order to develop a new peony Japan can proudly display.

Symbolism of the Peony Japan Has Cultivated

After adoption by the Japanese, the peony became a symbol of prosperity since only well-to-do people could afford this novelty. In early Greek mythology, the physician Paeon, for whom the plant is named, healed one god with the medicinal powers of the peony and made an enemy of another. For his trouble, he was turned into the plant he had used instead of being killed. Not so prosperous. Perhaps the gods were just an ungrateful lot, being spoiled rotten as they usually were.