2020 Chinese Tree Peony Seedlings All White

I just wanted to report back on some Chinese tree peony seeds I purchased and planted back in 2013 Chinese Peony Seeds from Ebay. These have been growing 7 years now, and I am sad to say they are all blooming white. The foliage of the plant and the pink and yellow centers of the flowers all remind me of my Tree Peony 'White Phoenix', 2018 Tree Peony 'White Phoenix' Best Performer - Week 2, which is just a named P. Ostii variety. The first of these tree peonies started blooming 2 years ago, just a single white bloom. Now 2 years later, there are several more blooming white, and all of them are growing with the same foliage.


Chinese Tree Peony Seedlings All White - 3/24
Maybe it is just me, but I am becoming a bit more distrustful of tree peony seeds sold from China. It seems like most of them are just common P. Ostii seeds (which are mostly white). None of them are actually from the bold, beautiful, brightly colored tree peonies they claim to sell you seeds from. I suppose many of those very fully double tree peony varieties pictured are probably infertile anyway, not actually producing seed. It all seems to be some sort of marketing scam to take your money and then send you some very common, cheap peony seeds instead. :(


Chinese Pink Tree Peony Seedlings

Chinese Pink Seedling Sign

P2 Black Tree Peony Seedlings

P2 Black Seedling Sign

P3 Blue Tree Peony Seedling

P3 Blue Seedling Sign

Chinese Tree Peony Seedlings All White - 3/26

Chinese Tree Peony Seedlings All White - 3/27

Chinese Tree Peony Seedlings All White - 3/27

2020 Peony Damage from Severe Thunderstorms During Level 3 Storm Threat

Intersectional Peony 'Bartzella' Damage from Severe Thunderstorms
I had several peonies that were damaged by severe thunderstorms yesterday. These two Intersectional Peony 'Bartzella' and Tree Peony 'Renown' were the worst. Intersectional Peony 'Bartzella' has been growing there for a while and has never been "knocked over" before. However this storm really did bring lots of strong wind (and rain and lightning). Tree Peony 'Renown' is actually a fairly new peony. It was planted in late 2018. So this is only its second growing season. I don't think anyone's stems were snapped completely off, but both of these looked like someone had stepped on the branches. Both of these peonies' stems were bent over from the base.


Tree Peony 'Renown' Damage from Severe Thunderstorms

Intersectional Peony 'Bartzella' Staked Up
So as you can see, I staked them up right away with a short 2 foot bamboo stake and some twine. Neither one of these peonies has had a chance to bloom yet this year. My early intersectional peonies have started blooming, but Intersectional Peony 'Bartzella' has not yet come into bloom. Tree Peony 'Renown' actually has 3 buds on it this year! It must really like its location, as it is growing foliage and blooms at an astounding rate. Last year it didn't have any buds or blooms on it! This year it has 3 big fat buds waiting to burst!! :-)


Tree Peony 'Renown' Staked Up

2020 Easter in the Peony Garden

Easter in the Southern Peony Garden
Although there is a stay at home order in place, and we weren't allowed to invite anyone over, we still had our own Easter Egg Hunt in the peony garden with just our own family. We usually host Easter each year for our whole family. So we definitely missed seeing everyone and having the cousins over. The children had a great time anyway. As long as there is a game and candy involved, the kids will have a great time no matter what!


Easter in the Southern Peony Garden
The intersectional peonies are just beginning to bloom, while the coral and yellow peonies are enjoying their heyday, in full bloom! The candy colored blooms in a variety of pastel colors are great to hide the Easter eggs amongst. The children enjoy finding the eggs hidden between the flowers. There were also a couple of giant glitter eggs with money in them. So the kids felt lucky to find those as Easter eggs too! I hope everyone had a safe, healthy, & Happy Easter!! :-)


Easter in the Southern Peony Garden

2020 Intersectional Peony Blooms Week 3 Early Mid

It's interesting to me that the first intersectionals to bloom are not yellow. Especially since the yellow intersectionals were the first ones invented (in Japan by a man named Itoh of course). I guess the yellow parent must be later blooming than these other colorful intersectional parents. The intersectional peony bloom season started off this year with Intersectional Peony 'Sonoma Amethyst', 2020 First Intersectional Peony Bloom of the Season, Intersectional Peony 'Sonoma Amethyst', followed a couple days later by Intersectional Peony 'Watermelon Wine' & Intersectional Peony 'First Arrival'.


Intersectional Peony 'Sonoma Amethyst'

Intersectional Peony 'Watermelon Wine'

Intersectional Peony 'First Arrival'

2020 Peony Blooms Week 3 Early Mid

The peony blooms season is just getting going here this week. Many more varieties are coming into bloom and the corals and yellows are definitely stealing the show! We had warmer temperatures this week, with a few days in the 80s, but we did get some rain and then cooler weather at the end of the week. The warm weather definitely spurred the peonies into action. It's so nice to see the garden at the beginning of the bloom season. There are no spent, tired blooms, and all of the flowers and foliage are fresh! I hope you are enjoying your peony bloom season as well!


Peony 'Salmon Dream'

Peony 'Lovely Rose'

Peony 'Roy Pehrson's Best Yellow'

Peony 'Coral Charm'

Peony 'Coral Magic'

Peony 'Burma Midnight'

2020 Potted Up Intersectional Peony Roots for Fall Planting

Potted Up Intersectional Peony Roots for Fall Planting
Well, since my last Intersectional Peony 'Callie's Memory' died of root rot, I decided that I would pot up the recent peony roots I've purchased, 2020 Intersectional Peony 'Callie's Memory' from Hirt's Gardens on Ebay, 2020 Ordering Peonies on Etsy from ExoticseedsLatvia. I plan to plant these intersectional peony roots out in the fall. I'm hoping that will give me some time to fix the soil where the old Intersectional Peony 'Callie's Memory' was planted and give these peonies a chance at surviving (and hopefully thriving) during their first Southern summer!


Potted Up Intersectional Peony Roots for Fall Planting
I'd already had these peony roots soaking for a day or two to try to regain any lost moisture during shipment. So I found some pots that were laying around to pot them up in. The two roots from Etsy/ExoticseedsLatvia were larger than the root from Ebay/Hirt's Gardens. So I put the Etsy/ExoticseedsLatvia root in the two larger purple pots, and I put the smaller Ebay/Hirt's Gardens root in the smaller 3.5" pot. It looks like that one came out of the same size pot any way since its roots were a little bent/square. It should be able to survive another couple seasons there.


Potted Up Intersectional Peony Roots for Fall Planting
I mixed some bagged top soil with the peat that came with these roots to create the soil for the pots. I also made sure to put some pot saucer trays underneath each of them to make sure they don't get too dry. I usually water things with rain from my rain barrel, which I keep mosquito dunks in. So the water from those rain barrels will keep the mosquitos from multiplying in the trays. So these should be good to go until fall! :-)


Potted Up Intersectional Peony Roots for Fall Planting

2020 Intersectional Peony 'Callie's Memory' Dies of Root Rot?

Intersectional Peony 'Callie's Memory'
Most of you probably know that 2020 Intersectional Peony 'Callie's Memory' Dies!!. You probably also know that I've ordered a replacement as well, 2020 Intersectional Peony 'Callie's Memory' from Hirt's Gardens on Ebay. So the next thing to do was to dig up the dead one to see what happened to it. As you can see there wasn't much left of the peony when I dug it out of the ground this week. It was actually quite disappointing. Judging by the barely attached limp shell of a root, it seems this peony suffered from some kind of root rot.


Intersectional Peony 'Callie's Memory' Before Digging
I know that I've had peonies to rot over the winter that are brand new roots and never get established, but this is the first time I've had an established 6 year old peony plant die from root rot. We did have record-breaking rainfall in 2018. So I'm not sure if that could have caused it, being 2 years ago, but maybe it could have started then and finished it off now? Who knows...


Digging Up Intersectional Peony 'Callie's Memory'
As you can see I started digging far away from the plant, but finding nothing, had to go to the center. I couldn't find much anything of substance or weight to dig. There was really nothing left but a few chunks of the crown, with not much root to speak of at all. Really the above ground stems left from previous years attached by a small bit of crown was really all that was left. I was kind of hoping to find a bit more. I took the three chunks I could find and washed them off on a some cement with the garden hose. Whatever it was that go it, got it good.


Intersectional Peony 'Callie's Memory' Crown Chunks
This makes me think about sanitation a bit more for sure. I wonder if it could have been caused by conditions and or fungal infection from the original grower. I don't currently soak any of my peony roots in a bleach solution, but this makes me wonder if I should. I also wonder if it could be something in the native soil that just multiplied with our extensive rain in 2018. Regardless there's most likely something in the soil now. So I think my next project for that area will be solarization to help sanitize the area just in case. I actually did my first solarization project to create this intersectional peony bed originally back in 2012 Intersectional Peony Bed Preparation, and I was happy with the results. Now it's time for a refresh!


Intersectional Peony 'Callie's Memory' What's Left