peony
It is also known as "red medicine", "Dianchun" and so on
Perennial herbaceous plant
One of the traditional Chinese flowers
Peony has a long history of cultivation in the mainland, and has the reputation of "among the hundred flowers, its name is the oldest". In the Book of Songs, there is a record of "Weishi and women, Yiqi scorned each other, and gave them peony". During the Three Kingdoms, Lu Ji, a native of Wu County (now Suzhou), had a relevant discussion on peony in his "Mao Poems, Grass, Trees, Birds, Beasts, Insects, and Fish". After the Wei and Jin dynasties, peony began to enter the courtyard of famous nobles, and the poetess Xin Xiao of the Jin Dynasty said in "Ode to Peony Flowers": "Ye Ye peony, planted in the courtyard." ”
In the Tang Dynasty, peony was used as an important ornamental plant in palaces and gardens. Suzhou in the Tang Dynasty also has records of peony cultivation. In April of the second year of Tang Baoli (826), Bai Juyi, who was the Taishou of Suzhou at the time, had a cloud in "The First Day of April of Hewei": "The waves are tender and green lotus, and the heavy column is late red medicine." Wu Palace is good and beautiful, and there are many pavilions in Yue County. It can be seen that the peony at that time was popular and planted in the fence stone platform, and later generations often called it "medicine fence". The Suzhou poet Tortoise Meng of the late Tang Dynasty also mentioned peony more than once, and he said in "Li Huafu": "Peony is a gift of hibiscus. In "Book with Grass Fu", the cloud said: "Chastity is built on the side, and sorrow is light for peony." "In the Tang Dynasty, although peony was not as highly regarded as peony, its cultural imagery was gradually valued by literati. Tortoise Meng's "peony as a gift" is actually taken from the love meaning of peony in the Book of Songs.
In the Song Dynasty, peony became more concerned than peony, and its cultural imagery was further enriched, gradually forming cultural images such as auspicious and wealthy prayers, symbols of love tokens, and humble qualities. According to the Northern Song Dynasty Liu Xuan's "Peony Spectrum", peony "from Guangling south to Gusu, north to Sheyang, east to Tongzhou sea, west to Chu, Hezhou, hundreds of miles of people are tired of watching", it can be seen that the cultivation range and scale of peony in the Jianghuai region of the Song Dynasty was wide.
Suzhou in the Song Dynasty, the economy was developed, and Wu was known to enjoy the custom of flowers, so at that time, people in addition to the love to plant flowers in the courtyard, the market trade of seasonal flowers also gradually flourished, as Lu Youren said in "Wuzhong Old Things": "Wu customs are good flowers, no different from Luozhong, and its land is also suitable for flowers. The flowers and trees in Wuzhong can not be described, and the peony and peony are the best. From his book, it can be seen that Suzhou people not only love flowers, but also the soil environment here is suitable for cultivation, and introduced that peonies and peonies were very popular in Suzhou at that time.
Wang Yuyan, a famous literati in the Northern Song Dynasty, loved peony and wrote many poems singing about peony. When he served as the magistrate of Changzhou County, Suzhou, he wrote "Gift to Huzhou Zhang Zhi", and the poem Yun: "Shangzhi has not returned to the Red Medicine Academy, and the white apple is first available for Yin." Fan Chengda, one of the four masters of the Southern Song Dynasty and a native of Suzhou, retired to Shihu in his later years, and he planted flowers and trees in the garden, including the peony he introduced from Yangzhou. According to the chronicles, Fan Chengda introduced "crimson, purple, and white colors, and several kinds of Chiba and Chongtai". He recalled in the poem "Shihu Peony Blooms and Returns to the North to Restore Weiyang, Buy Roots and Plant This Cause Remembers Two Old Things": "Ten thousand miles back to Xu Jia, move the twenty-four bridge flowers. Since then, Shihu has added spring color, and don't praise the alfalfa. "Probably from the beginning of the Song Dynasty, literati like Fan Chengda like to appreciate peony and drunkenness, because the flowering period of the two is similar, the flower shape and floral fragrance can complement each other, so the advantages of the two are valued by the literati, Fan Chengda in "Mr. Le opens a new hall to wait for the peony to make a poem gift" summarized and refined "peony has a national color, and the liquor is a heavenly fragrance." The two wonders are peerless, and the grass is not fragrant". With the wide spread of peony cultural imagery, it also led to the elegant gathering activities in the form of peony medicine meetings among literati. According to the "Gusu Zhi", the Southern Song Dynasty Suzhou County Zhizhong Pavilion in the middle of the building, the county garden was once called "the same paradise", during the Jiading period, "there is a peony altar in front of its Qiyun Building, the flowers bloom every year, and the peony medicine will be called the banquet guest number of the Taishou banquet".
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the prosperity of private gardens in Suzhou, peony also became an important scenic spot element in the garden. In the garden of this period, people like to plant peony and peony together in the flower bed or flower platform, Suzhou Taicang Wang Shimao "School Garden Miscellaneous" has a cloud "more than peony Tianxiang national color, and can not be without the hatred of the color cloud easy to disperse, because of the repetition of a pavilion, the surrounding peony is planted, the name of the pavilion is said to continue Fang", and the cloud "when the guests are all ant set, it is really worthy of continuing Fang". In order to prolong the time of cherry blossom viewing, it was popular to plant woody peonies and herbaceous peonies together. Xu Taishi, a native of Suzhou in the Ming Dynasty, planted the two flowers together in his garden, and Jiang Yingke's "Houle Tang Record" described the scene of "the north direction downstairs, the left and right corners are planted with peonies and peonies, and the five colors are intertwined, and the flowers bloom like embroidery". Another example is Wen Zhengming's inscription poem in the "Atlas of the Humble Administrator's Garden", at that time, "mixed peony, peony, osmanthus, begonia, purple plutonium flowers" in the Fanxiangwu at that time, and there was a poem "Mixed plants of famous flowers and grass halls, purple fern danyan into a row". Wang Shizhen, a scholar of the Criminal Department of the Ming Dynasty and a native of Taicang, mentioned in his "Zongren Guanglu Huasong Honglu Wang Jishan Invited Yu to See Peony in Wang Gongshi Garden and then Returned to Guanglu to Watch Peony Drama into a Must" mentioned that "the difference between red pill and white medicine, and the general flower pedicle is two springs", and in the poem note, "Peony is received by peony and flowers before and after".
The application of peony in Suzhou gardens is mainly presented with lake stone flower beds or bluestone flower platforms as carriers. This planting method, on the one hand, can form a landscape effect that echoes with the lake stone, and on the other hand, it can also increase the sense of hierarchy of ornamentation, and the key is to take into account the growth habit of peony that needs to be permeable. At that time, it was often decorated with wooden vermilion railings or stone carved railings, so it was also called "medicine railings". In the Ming Dynasty, the head of Suzhou Fu Shen Shixing deliberately set up the scenic spot of "medicine column". In the Master of Nets Garden, there is a famous Dianchun Courtyard, which is a typical courtyard where peony is taken as the main viewing object. In addition to cultivating or potting in the open field in the garden, peony is also used as a vase flower in the hall.
After the Ming Dynasty, a major breakthrough was made in the cultivation technology of peony, and the flower colors and shapes were more diverse. Wang Shimao's "School Garden Miscellaneous" recorded the technology of grafting peonies with peony roots at that time, which made "hundreds of illusions". When his brother Wang Shizhen mentioned the peony variety, he also wrote a poem: "No matter how many kinds of flowers are flattering, they are beautiful for the palace and look at them carefully." ”
There are many colors of peony, and the literati of Suzhou recorded them in poetry. For example, Xu Zhenqing said that "the red peony in the court is full of flowers"; There is a white peony medicine written by Gu Lan "a branch of smoke and moon shadow, which is resistant to Taoist people"; There is the light red and dark purple in Xu Ben's poem "Today's rain and sunshine are heavier, and the light red and deep purple have withered"; There is also Wang Shizhen's praise of "100 kinds of peony flowers, true red is rare"; There is also Shen Deqian's "flower is more yellow than goose yellow to wine yellow" of yellow peony.
The cultural imagery surrounding peony has always inspired literati and writers to compare it to it. Qian Qianyi once used "Bingjian scholars and women look at each other, and peony fights for teaching and returns" to explain the love implication of peony; Shen Deqian's poem "Wei once met the golden belt", is to use the allusion of the four-phase hairpin flower in the Song Dynasty to express auspiciousness and wealth; At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Yu, a talented man, took the image of peony and compared it to Xi Shi with "empty peony like Xizi"; And Wang Shizhen used "for the palace and take a closer look" to correspond to the alias of "Dianchun" of peony, and took its humble character of being willing to let a hundred flowers bloom first.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, whenever the peony in the garden was in full bloom, people usually invited three or five friends, or to drink and watch the drama, or to celebrate the poetry and wine, or to draw the inscription, forming a garden flower appreciation gathering activity in the name of flower appreciation. Just as Shen Zhou in the Ming Dynasty once said in "Looking at Flowers and Persuading Chen Shize to Wine", "Flowers bloom, wine and drink, and urge flower drums and peonies." drunk him 36,000 yuan, I made an offer with the god of flowers", Wang Shizhen also described the scene of the literati drinking and enjoying the drama while appreciating the peony flowers. The peony has been like an old person, and the pomegranate flower is suddenly sent to make the eyes bright". On the ninth day of April in the sixteenth year of Daoguang of the Qing Dynasty (1836), it coincided with Wu Yusong's 90th birthday, Lin Zexu, who was an official in Suzhou at the time, and Shi Yunyu, Zhu Jue, Wu Tingchen, Dong Guohua and other literati enjoyed the peony flowers of Houle Pavilion together, and composed a poem "Last night, the stars moved to the South Pole, and the cyclamen gathered in Dongwu for a while. The palace is full of incense in spring, and the Buddha is bathed in the early stage of the Dharma bowl". At the same time of appreciating the flowers, in addition to poetry and wine chanting, painting peony paintings were also more popular in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Qiu Ying took the allusion of Han Qi and others wearing peony hairpins in the Song Dynasty, and painted "Four-phase Hairpin Flower Picture"; Wang Wu has a vertical scroll of "Peony Map", in which the peony with different postures and colors is painted to match the lake stone, and the inscription poem "Spring comes to the medicine garden flowers like brocade, and the five-color clouds of Yaochi are absolutely beaten". In addition, Tang Yin and Chen Chun have also painted ink "Peony Picture".
Source: Suzhou Garden Official Micro Comprehensive Sorting
Editor: Xiao Ran