After the tragedy of September 11, 2001, the town of Yatsuka in Shimane Prefecture, Japan offered a gift of over 500 Japanese tree peonies to the Rockefeller Preserve in Sleepy Hollow, NY, as well as to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, as a healing memorial. Being peony enthusiasts, my husband and I have visited the Preserve every year since then to admire the exquisite blooms that are usually at their peak in mid May. One peony in particular, the white one depicted here, captured my heart, and we decided we would like to find one for our garden. That was the beginning of a long search. Every year I would take photos and send them around to different peony growers, to no avail. One year I met with the Rockefeller Preserve volunteer garden staff, who were kind enough to show me the planting plan and even arrange a Japanese translator. Unfortunately, the specific name of the peony was not on the plan, only “White Peony.” I continued my search for a few more years. By 2012 I had probably contacted every peony grower in North America. No one could identify it or had anything like it to sell.
I finally decided that even if I didn’t know the name of this peony, I would make a painting of it and note cards based on that. Then it occurred to me that there was one more route to try. I contacted my good friend Naoko, who lives in Tokyo and is an avid gardener, and I asked her to help with the detective work. She called the Shimane Prefecture for me, but reported back on September 10 that they couldn’t provide the name, as their gift to the Preserve had included so many varieties of white peonies. That’s when Naoko’s husband, Moto, got busy on Facebook. Amazingly, he found the name and wrote me the next day. It was called Shimane Hakugan, meaning “White Goose.” I was thrilled to have that information. Now I could properly identify it on the back of my note card. That was September 11. So the long quest for the name of this beautiful flower finally bore results on the very anniversary of the tragic date that occasioned the gift of the magnificent peony memorial from the people of Shimane Prefecture. The synchronicity warmed my heart!