Peonies have a very unique look, but there are a few flowers that can resemble the delicate and elegant appearance of peonies, even if not perfectly.
Here are 10 great flowers that make ideal additions or replacements if you want peony-like blooms in your garden.
1. Cupped Roses (Rosa spp.)
Some roses look like peonies because of the rounded shape of their blooms, but not all of them; while hybrid tea varieties look nothing like our herbaceous perennials, cupped ones do.
2. Persian Buttercup (Ranunculus asiaticus)
With a similar flower shape to peonies, balanced, sweet and globular, with cupped petals, Persian buttercup is a very good lookalike species.
3. Poppy Anemones (Anemone coronaria)
Poppy anemones have cupped blooms, with large and rounded petals, like single peonies. They will start their colorful displays a bit earlier than Paeonia, but for a short time, they will be in blossom together.
4. Camellias (Camellia japonica)
Many camellias look like peony blooms, but some more than others, and we are going to see which and why.
5. ‘Pink Paeony’ Opium Poppy (Pinaverium Somniferous ‘Pink Paeony’)
This cultivar of opium poppy even takes its name from our peonies, ‘Pink Paeony’, because it really looks like one. With a full, round bloom with salmon pink petals, broad on the outside and ruffled within, it is actually easy to confuse it for an actual Paeonia variety… The large flowers reach 5 inches across (12 cm) but they will come in summer.
6. Japanese Quinces (Chaenomeles speciosa)
Japanese quince varieties have the same round and romantic looking bloom shape as peonies, and some are more credible lookalikes than others.
7. Dahlias (Dahlia spp.)
Dahlias and peonies are quite similar in many ways, especially when it comes to double and collarette varieties. Globular blooms, accompanied with fairly irregular petal arrangement give you that sweet and romantic look we are after.
8. African Marigold (Tagetes erecta)
African marigold has globular blooms, much smaller than but similar to those of double peonies. Also the color range is smaller, from yellow to orange, but always bright and beautiful.
9. Begonias (Begonia spp.)
Some begonias have very round, even large blooms with irregularly arranged petals, like many peonies, and some are ever ruffled.
10. Carnations (Dianthus caryophyllus)
With lovely frilled and ruffled petals, round flower heads and often an intoxicating scent, carnations too can be peony lookalikes. The color range starts with white and ends with purple all along the warm gamut
