2019 Peony 'Glowing Candles' Tries to Grow Again in January

Well, the first sprout on my newly planted Peony 'Glowing Candles' has already died. Back in November, shortly after I planted this peony root (in October), it sprouted the first time, 2018 Song Sparrow Peony Root Sprouting in the Fall. Now it's January, and it is sprouting again. We always have weird winter weather here in NC. You never really know what you're going to get, like the 2018 7 Inches of Snow on Southern Peony Gardens! we got this December. It was 71 degrees on January 1st for the high and 31 degress on the 21st for the high. It's mostly been in the 50s, 60s, or 40s for the high, but we've had some much colder weather so far this week. The 17 degree overnight temperatures we've had this week have surely done it in again. I just hope this thing has some eyes left (and energy) come spring!


Peony 'Glowing Candles' Growing Again in January
The more I think about this, the more I feel sure this root must have been refrigerated for some time (maybe even an extended period of time). I bought this root from the 2018 Fall Peony Sale @ Song Sparrow where they had 7 select peony varieties on sale for $19.95. The varieties they put on sale were 'David Harum', 'Glowing Candles', 'Green Lotus', 'High Adventure', 'Honey N Cream', 'Jubilee Pink', and 'Scarlet O'Hara'. I'm guessing those 7 varieties must have been overstocked and were in need of being sold, thus the price markdown. I couldn't resist buying Peony 'Glowing Candles', though, because it just looks so lovely. I'm wondering if anyone else who bought a root or two from this sale has had the same experience as me with having them sprout early (just curious)...

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