2013 New Fall Growth on Purple English Tree Peony

When watering my garden earlier this week, I noticed some new fall growth on one of the Purple Tree Peony Seedlings From Ebay UK. All of the existing foliage had already died back. This was probably due to the stress of shipment during the summer and the adjustment to a new climate. Anyway it's still alive! That's good news. I just hope these guys come back in the spring! One of them has two new leaves on it, and the other one doesn't have any active growth. Let's hope that one has just gone dormant for the year. It's nice to have something happening in the garden with peonies at this time of year. All the rest of my peonies are pretty inactive since things are winding down for peonies about now. The next thing will be the colorful fall foliage, which I'm looking forward to!

Purple Tree Peony Seedlings from UK


New Growth on Purple Tree Peony Seedling

2013 Purple Tree Peony Seedlings From Ebay UK

Purple Tree Peony Seedlings for Sale on Ebay
I was lucky enough to happen upon these purple tree peony seedlings for sale on Ebay a few weeks ago. Purple is my favorite color, and I couldn't believe how cheap these peony seedlings were selling for. I don't know if these new plants will be true to seed, but I am definitely interested and excited to see what kind of plant and flower these seedlings will turn out to have. I purchased two of these seedlings on July 14th, and they arrived in the mail yesterday - Royal Mail! :-) These plants are from Blandford, Dorset, United Kingdom. It seems they don't get as cold there in the winter, and they also do not get as hot in the summer. Their temperatures are much more stable than they are here in NC. So I'm curious to see how the plant adjusts to our weather here.

Purple Tree Peony Seedlings from the UK
The plants were definitely stressed from their international voyage, and I'm sure the summer weather here didn't help them much. However they were still a bit moist even though the soil was a bit shaken up. The leaves started to turn brown on the edges, but even if they go dormant now, I think they will still survive. At least I hope they will. That's why I bought two, just in case! I did get a good look at the roots on these since the soil was shaken up quite a bit, and the roots on at least one of them looked really healthy. On one of the plants I noticed the seed was still attached to the peony root where it sprouted, and I have never seen a peony seed this BIG before!!! I put a ruler next to it and another normal sized tree peony seed next to it for reference. The peony seed from this purple tree peony looks a little over 5/8", where the normal peony seed looks a little under 3/8". That's a big difference! Well I guess we'll see what these giant seeded peonies can do!

Purple Tree Peony Seedling	Purple Tree Peony Seed

2013 First Peony Seedling Develops Immature Bud

Sorry to say that the First Peony Seedling with Developing Bud grown from seed in my garden has become an immature bud. This also happens sometimes on divisions that don't have quite enough energy saved up in their storage roots to develop a mature bud. This may have been the case for my new seedling as well. As you can see the bud has turned from green to red, and will gradually shrivel and dry up. Developing buds will stay green and slowly increase in size. Sometimes you just have to wait another year to see your peony's beautiful face. However with another year of growth, your peony should hopefully have the chance to develop even stronger roots in order to grow even larger the next year with (hopefully!) a nice blossom. :-)

Peony Seedling with Immature Bud

2013 First Peony Seedling with Developing Bud

Well, I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will be in for a treat this peony bloom season. While checking over my original peony seedling test bed, I found a bud on one of the plants! That is just so exciting. This plant came from one of the seeds of the Peony 'Lady Alexandra Duff' that I planted in 2007, the first year that I planted any peony seeds. So it has been 5 years since I planted that seed! Perhaps some of these peony seedlings could have bloomed sooner if I had given them more water or more sun or some fertilizer, perhaps. So these seeds have truly been a product of Mother Nature with very little to no intervention from me. The only thing I did was harvest them, keep track of where they came from, and plant them in the ground! It is not uncommon for very small buds to never develop into blooming size. So I will definitely be watching over this one and maybe giving it a little extra water to try to help increase the odds. If it blooms it will be the first ever peony bloom that I will get to see from any of my peony seed plantings.
Small Bud on Seedling Peony Plant


Seedling of Peony 'Lady Alexandra Duff'

2012 Paeonia Species Peony Seedlings

So I got 9 kinds of peony seeds from the 2010 American Peony Society Convention. I planted them in 2010, but I waited until this year to make sure that there weren't any stragglers. Four of the nine species actually germinated. I'm wondering if the germination rates were affected by the freshness of the seeds. Seeds sown here in my zone 7 growing climate will generally germinate the next spring. I've heard several times that sometimes peony seeds won't send up leaves until the 2nd year, but I've not found that to be true here. They usually sprout the first spring or not at all. Of course I usually let Mother Nature do the sprouting for me. I'm not much of a babier when it comes to plants, so they are most often left to take care of themselves. The 3 species that actually germinated here in 2011 were: Paeonia mascula, Paeonia mlokosewitschii, Paeonia peregrine, and Paeonia tenuifolia. Paeonia tenuifolia did not come back this year for 2012, but the other three did. I'm hoping to get some more seeds from the 2012 APS convention at the end of this month to try again. Hopefully I'll get some other species peony to grow here!!!

Paeonia mascula


Paeonia mlokosewitschii


Paeonia peregrine