Black and grey realism style tattoo of a large peony with leaves and a second bloom behind it, placed on the upper arm and shoulder.

Black and grey peony on the upper arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large peony bloom is the central subject, with a smaller flower partly visible behind it and several leaves along the stem. The petals use fine linework with soft grey shading, and the dark centre gives strong contrast. The flower fills most of the frame, with the arm curving diagonally across the photograph.

Botanical Realism Upper arm Shoulder Peony Flower Leaves Stem Bloom

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The frost had got into the peony bed by the second week of February, so Nell took the fork to it with the kettle still warm on the Aga behind her. Her father had planted those roots the spring her mother left, three clumps dug out of a flooded allotment in Thorne and carried home in a feed sack. Nothing had flowered in them for two years. He called them stubborn, the way he called the ewes stubborn when they would not come to the gate.

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The fork sank through the rime into dark clay. Under the first clump the roots were pale and knotted like old knuckles, each one fat with the sugar it had saved since September. Nell lifted them onto the sacking one at a time. Her father stood in the back doorway with his hands in his coat pockets, saying nothing, which was how he said most things now that the bank had written again.

Wedged against the second root was a biscuit tin gone soft with rust. Inside were seed packets and a bundle of paper labels, each one in her mother's looping hand. Black Sea, north wall. Sarah's dark ones, do not let him plant them in the shade. Nell read the last label twice and looked up at the house, where the kitchen window showed nothing but its own reflection.

She carried the largest root to the south side of the wall, where the low sun would reach it by noon. She dug a hole deeper than she needed, set the root with its eyes facing up, and pushed the clay back with her heel. Then she tied the label to a stake, the ink already fading. When she stood, the frost on the fork handle had melted into the lines of her palm, and the ground under her boots was finally soft.