Poland, peonies.... where are you????

The peonies along the wall of the raised garden have started to open. They are beautiful: white with the tiniest hint of pink. Heavy, fruitlike buds that make you wonder how the plant is strong enough to lift them up. But...

I grew up in England, and we had peonies, mostly red ones, and beautiful too. I remember being really proud of some that grew in my garden in Manton when the girls were tiny: emerging each spring from a small bed beneath the bay window, coming out of nowhere and bringing joy. But...

I went to Poland. Spent several weeks in a tiny, tiny village in the north of the country, where most of the farmers still relied on horses for heavy duties, where storks nested on a flagpole behind the village school, and where a nightingale sang his heart out all night.

And where the peonies smelled like heaven.

The peonies in England did not smell like that.

The white ones in this garden were already over by the time I moved in last year. I watched them sprout up this spring, waiting, waiting to plunge my nose into their petals, hoping somehow they had arrived here from Eastern Europe, along with a stork or two maybe.

But no... they have no scent. Nothing. Like the rosebuds on sale in the supermarket. No perfume.

Why??????