2019 Planting Chinese Peonies from Ebay

Chinese Tree Peony Order on Ebay
So I ordered these tree peonies on Ebay last August, and I just got around to planting them on the first of the year. I guess you could say I'm thinking these probably won't be correct. There weren't cheap, but they weren't that expensive either. Each of the orders was for 2 roots and it was $22.99 with free shipping. So I ended up with 4 roots altogether, but after opening the box and looking at the roots, I wasn't very motivated to plant them since they didn't really look like tree peonies to me. They looked like herbaceous roots. Also all 4 roots were in the same bag, and none of them were labeled for variety. I figured these were probably too good to be true, but I haven't seen anyone else offering tree peonies like these, and I actually did see the purple tree peony on my trip to China, 2018 Southern Peony Visits Shenzhou Peony Garden 神州牡丹园, (and it was my most favorite peony that I saw on the whole trip).


Chinese Purple Tree Peony
The color of the purple tree peony I photographed is not quite this blue toned (so obviously this photo was altered), but it was a lovely shade of lavender-pink-purple and it has this same "bomb" type peony flower form. So I had to try anyway since I really, really want one of those purple tree peonies. Who knows if I will ever find one, though? The roots however were a solid mass of crown with tons of eyes on them, no woody stems, and very little to no feeder roots. I'm sure they will live, but they will probably take many years to flower, and most likely they will be some type of herbaceous peony. I feel a little disappointed already, but my quest for the purple bomb type tree peony will go on, and I will just add the results of these roots to my 2018 Ebay Peony Seller Reviews, whenever they bloom and show their true colors!


'Qui Ball' Light Pink Tree Peony

2019 Peony Experiment - Planting Little Darlin' Intersectional Root Pieces

Digging and Dividing Intersectional Peony 'Little Darlin''
You know me - I'm always up to something. So I decided to go visit my Grandma yesterday since it was raining, and you can't really do anything outside. I had purchased a couple extra 50% off roots in the Adelman Peony Gardens sale, 2018 Adelman Peony Gardens Black Friday Sale 50% Off for her, and I still hadn't remembered to give them to her yet. So it seemed like a good day to do it, but I also wanted to bring her a root from the 'Little Darlin'' Intersectional Peony which has been growing like a weed in my garden. I wanted to split it and bring her a hunk since it is planted right next to my Intersectional Peony 'Sonoma YeDo', and it is kind of encroaching on its space a bit.


Intersectional Peony 'Little Darlin'' Root Divisions
So I split a piece of my Intersectional Peony 'Little Darlin'' off with my shovel, but it split into two large chunks. The large chunk on the left with the huge root was one solid division, so I gave that one to my Grandma. The chunk on the right didn't have much root on it, and when I picked it up, it split into 7 pieces (with varying degrees of roots)!! All 7 pieces had nice pink buds on them. This sounded like another experiment in the making, and it reminded me a lot of the Intersectional Peony 'Bartzella' roots I planted in previous experiment, 2012 Peony Experiments - Intersectional Divisions.


7 Intersectional Peony 'Little Darlin'' Small Root/Eye Pieces
So I decided to plant all 7 intersectional peony root pieces in my peony test bed to see how they might grow. I planted them from smallest amount of root (on the left) to largest amount of root (on the right). It was a little muddy and wet outside for planting, but luckily it was only a light rain. We shall see in the spring how many of these roots sprout, and then we shall see how many of them live to see another spring. Last time all of the Intersectional Peony 'Bartzella' roots sprouted, no matter how little (or no) roots the division had, 2013 Peony Experiments - Intersectional Divisions Grow. So I am interested to see how these Intersectional Peony 'Little Darlin'' plants will do (especially since the original plant was growing like a weed).


Intersectional Peony 'Little Darlin'' Pieces Replanted

Intersectional Peony 'Little Darlin'' Sign

2019 New Year Holds (Peony) Promise!

Wow! Happy 2019! I can't believe another year is done, and another one has already begun! Although time passes quickly I am always trying to make the most of it. There is always something to tidy up (in the house or garden). Since I've had the trees removed, 2018 More Light for Tree Peonies, Sweet Gum Ball & Poplar Trees Gone!, I've finished up putting out the beautiful bright colored mulch that was left behind, 2018 Mulch for Peonies from Tree Removal, found a bit of time to move a few tree peonies, 2018 Peony Experiments - Move Mislabeled White Tree Peonies, and also tuck a few last minute peony roots into the ground. I hope you've had time to clean up your garden and finish up any last minute gardening tasks you wanted to complete as well. If not, then you've got a whole new year!


Pink Lateral Tree Peony Bud

Yellow Terminal Tree Peony Bud
Now the waiting game has begun. I am so looking forward to seeing how my tree peonies perform this year, now that they have more sun. While I'm waiting I decided to take a few photos of some of the fat tree peony buds in my garden. Yes, it is only January 1st, and some of them are already a bit fat (actually I took these photos on New Year's Eve - December 31st). By the time April rolls around, the will be about to burst. It's so nice to see the different shapes, sheath colors, and bud colors on the tree peonies. Since we don't have any actual peony blooms yet, I thought I'd entertain you with a bit of anticipation and promise for peonies in the new year, not to mention these tree peony buds are a colorful lot too!


Tree Peony Lateral Bud

Tree Peony Lateral Bud
It's also kind of neat to see how different tree peonies have different shapes and colors of buds. The yellow bud it actually from Tree Peony 'Yao's Yellow'. So its buds kind of match its flowers since they are both yellow hued. Most of these tree peony buds pictured here are white flowering tree peonies, having pink buds. The middle tree peony bud photo is of the lavender P. rockii tree peony seedling that I am starting to watch. It's buds appear to be the lightest pink of this lot. The flowers on that tree peony open a lovely shade of lavender pink. I can't wait to see it bloom again! Happy New Year!


Tree Peony Terminal Bud

2018 Peony Experiments - Move Mislabeled White Tree Peonies

Replanted White Tree Peony
I just had to sneak in one more project before the end of the year. This spring I tagged 4 of my tree peonies that are all white singles. Three of these were mislabeled tree peonies I bought on Ebay that I recorded in my 2018 Ebay Peony Seller Reviews. The last one was one of the tree peonies I got from Ali Express - very inexpensively, 2014 Chinese Tree Peonies from Ali Express. I couldn't just let these perfectly good tree peonies go to waste (just because they weren't the color I ordered), so I decided to reuse them as a border around the back edge of my woods behind my tree peony garden and along my garden path that leads to my outdoor covered swing. Some of these seem like P. ostii and there may be a P. rockii or two mixed in there as well.


White Tree Peony Being Replanted
Supposedly tree peonies resent being moved. So I guess you could say this might be an experiments of sorts. Since there of 4 of them, I might have a lot of built up resentment come spring, but I hope not. I'm hoping since I just removed 2 very large tulip poplars that were directly shading them, they will forgive me quickly and the additional sunshine will make up for any potentially severed roots. I tried not to sever too many roots, but a few of them did get - let's just say - "separated". I think most of them were intact. :-) I am anticipating that some of these may even bloom again this spring. I will let you know how they fare and whether I get any blooms out of them come spring.


White Tree Peony Roots

2018 Mulch for Peonies from Tree Removal

Free Mulch from Removed Trees
So I've been a little busy since I had the trees removed, 2018 More Light for Tree Peonies, Sweet Gum Ball & Poplar Trees Gone! I had a little something left in my driveway after they trees were removed, a giant pile of gorgeous mulch! Usually I am able to get a load of free mulch from someone's else trees, but this time I got a load of free mulch from my own trees. The largest pieces of the stumps were not able to be shredded. So those were hauled away to the dump, but the tops of the trunks and all of the branches were all shredded to leave me this beautiful bright colored mulch. I really took for granted how many tree were removed for all those loads of mulch I'd gotten in the past. They took out seven very large trees on my property just to create one load of mulch!


Free Mulch on Tree Peony Bed
So anyway I've been busily spreading my (kind of) free mulch all over my yard in whatever beds needed it most. I was able to cover my children's playground and the dogwood trees and planting beds around it, my intersectional peony bed, my Saunders peony bed, and my tree peony bed already. I have been using my gorilla cart to put the mulch out, and I still have a few loads left to put out. Hopefully I can finish putting it out this year. I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas (or Happy Holiday) and a Prosperous New Year! May your hearts be filled with the joy of the season, while we all look forward to the next (peony) season (Spring!) with great anticipation! Take Care & Warm Wishes - Adriana

2018 Planting Tree Peony Seeds from Luoyang China

Peony Seeds from Luoyang China with Garden Stakes
It took me a lot longer to figure out how to label these 2018 Tree Peony Seeds from Luoyang, China than it did to actually plant them. I did get them planted last week though, before our big snow, 2018 7 Inches of Snow on Southern Peony Gardens! (just in time, I guess!) I don't know what if anything they will do, but we shall see in the spring, if not spring 2019, then spring 2020, I suppose. I ended up laminating the photos of the seeds and attaching those to some copper garden stakes I had on hand. Since they didn't have an English name printed on them, I couldn't easily print a Brother label for them. Just in case they don't do much, I didn't want to have my husband go to the trouble of trying to figure out the translation for each of them.


Chinese Tree Peony Photo Garden Stakes
So what I did to create these garden stakes was first write a number on every paper and every plastic bag (1-20) so I could keep straight which picture went with which bag of seeds. Then I scanned in all of these tree peony photos in case I need to reference them later. Then I laminated each photo with some UV resistant laminating material. Then I used gorilla tape to affix each laminated photo to the copper garden stake. I'm kind of curious to see how these hold up. Even if these peony seeds don't do much, it will be an interesting experiment to see if the photos fade or not, whether the gorilla tape withstands the elements well, and how these "photo" garden stakes hold up outside.


Copper Tree Peony Garden Stakes

2018 7 Inches of Snow on Southern Peony Gardens!

Snow on Southern Peony Gardens
Wow! We just got 7 inches of snow! I can't say I remember getting this much snow in a long, long time. I know we got 5 inches this January, 2018 5+ Inches of Snow on Southern Peonies!, which was rare. I also I don't remember getting this much snow in December before. This has been a high precipitation year for us overall, though. I'm sure all of the peonies will be fine since the snow is completely covering them. Almost all of my tree peonies are completely under the snow since they are so young and not very tall yet. Since the snow is so deep, you can't see any of the peony garden markers either!


Intersectional Peony Garden Under Snow

Snow on Bird Feeder
I just wish I could have finished planting all of my peonies before the snow, but alas, I have not. That box I ordered from the 2018 Adelman Peony Gardens Black Friday Sale 50% Off is still waiting to be planted. Since we're in North Carolina, though, this snow will likely all be gone by tomorrow or the next day. So I'm sure I'll have another opportunity to get them planted. I'm just hoping the ground is not too mushy to walk on and dig in. Since newly planted peonies seem to be most susceptible to root rot, I'm also hoping that our winter is not too wet that the peony roots rot.


Tree Peonies Under Snow

Snow on Trees

7" of Snow!

I'm really glad we got those big trees down (2018 More Light for Tree Peonies, Sweet Gum Ball & Poplar Trees Gone!) before this snow and ice storm hit. Our ground has already been quite soggy this fall (no drought this year), so this heavy snow and ice on these large trees is a recipe for disaster. The weight of this frozen precipitation can bring trees down quick. Remember that large oak tree in my back yard that got taken out by an ice storm 2 years ago, 2016 3-Trunked Monster Down = More Sun for Peonies? Several people have lost power in this storm already. I'm hoping we can keep ours on, but we'll see. I am trying to prepare for a power outage just in case... Stay warm out there!


Wood Rack and Blueberry Bushes Under Snow