Command Performance is a hybrid peony with enormous, fully double red blooms early in the peony season, carried on strong stems over a 2 to 3 foot clump. Each flower is a bowl of packed petals that makes a spectacular cut flower.

Peonies can do well in Birmingham if you plant them right: full sun to light afternoon shade, and set the eyes barely an inch below the soil, as deep planting stops bloom in the South. Once settled, it's a decades-long fixture that resents being moved.