Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you and yours! It seemed welcoming the new year is appropriate with the freshness of a flower, and the introduction of the Peony, as it will be growing in the Chinese Market Garden this season.

One of our Chinese Market Garden volunteers, Sybil, tells me that the peony or 牡丹 is recognized in China as a national symbol of prosperity, wealth, and honour, or 富贵花, in both a material and non-material sense. As such, the peony is widely used in Chinese art, like sculpture and painting, and annually China enjoys in live peony exhibitions in April and May, namely in 洛阳 or in Luoyang, in northeast China. Be sure to stop by and see ours in May!