Ants & Peonies

I remember going out into my grandparents' yard when I was a child and watching -- as long as I could manage, because they creeped me out a little bit -- the ants crawling over the peony buds. I would itch the rest of the day! We used to think that the ants and the peonies enjoyed some kind of symbiotic relationship: the ants would feast (apparently) on some substance that the peonies manufactured, and the peonies somehow needed the mechanism of the ants' presence to help them open their buds.

I think that's only half-correct. The ants do apparently like a sweet waxy substance on the peony buds; but I've read on gardening web sites that the ants don't assist in any way with the opening of the buds.

In any case, at 51 years, I still watch the ants on the peony buds. And it still makes me itch!

And it makes me think of my grandparents big yard on the corner back there in Kankakee, Illinois all those years ago.