Peony Catharina Fontijn

In the US they would say this is a meat & potatoes Peony; no-nonsense, and no hidden user manual. The story goes that she is brought up in a Spartan way, some sort of happy-go-lucky way of hybridizing. What some Peony breeders used to do in the old days, or maybe still do sometimes, is harvest a lot of seeds from a good variety, plant the seed somewhere at the nursery, and just leave it for many years. No protection against sick and illness, and at most some weeding from time to time. They will just have to figure it out, survival of the fittest. After some years the grower checks if something valuable stands amongst his collection of seedlings: a Peony that survived despite a lack of care and coddling. This is how Catharina Fontijn came to be. The breeder did a good job, and she still is an amazing Peony.