The story of how I acquired the white peony:

When I first moved into my current home, residing in the house next door was the old mother, who I saw emerge only once - during a blizzard with her walker to putty the rotting fence post using her bare fingers, and her crazy (literally) daughter who was stuck in a 1970’s fashion time warp and was seen to reach into her cleavage for some sort of unknown snacks (also a dog, an unknown quantity of cats, and a massive amount of cockroaches). The property was rundown and very overgrown. The old mother eventually died and the daughter was “removed” leaving the house abandoned for several years. One day, amongst all the weeds and overgrown shrubbery, I spotted, far back in the front yard, a small but beautiful white peony with a touch of red on one of its petals, that I had never seen in that yard before. When the house was finally sold and slated for demolition, I thought about that peony and that it would be destroyed.

So, obviously, I went into that yard, dug it up, and moved it into mine, where it flourishes today.