When I was a young girl, I was always dispatched to do the weeding and keep control of the garden at home. My sister who is three years younger than me was left with the cooking and housework. Not surprisingly she went on to become a home economics teacher while I received the dreaded Is oth liom a rá letter telling me I hadn’t been accepted. These were the days before CAO applications where you had to sit a practical sewing test and do an interview to get into Sion Hill or St Angela’s.

But back to my early gardening days when I was fascinated by peony roses. We had a bed of these rich red, velvet-petaled beauties that looked so exotic to me. The house was built in 1918 and the garden probably dates from around the same time which makes these lovely old fashioned peonies about 100 years old.

When I married and moved to Ballyanne I took a peony tuber with me as a memento of the garden I loved so much. Back then, I didn’t have flowe beds in Ballyanne so I just took a spade to some ground beside an old farm building and heeled the tuber into the space. I always meant to move it somewhere more suitable, but it took off and within a few years the peony had spread and was producing lots of flowers.

All herbaceous peonies like moist but well-drained soil. Keep well away from water-logged ground. They like sun and most prefer alkaline soil with a good feed of farm manure when planting. Herbaceous peonies can be divided around this time of year and in spring but be sure when replanting to keep the crown above soil level or they won’t flower otherwise.

Over the years I have successfully grown other peonies but none have been as splendid or floriferous as my childhood favourite.